Continuity mistake: In the last 20 minutes of the movie when Howard Payne is on the train and offers Jack some money, Howard opens the money bag and gets sprayed with purple paint. When Howard climbs on top of the train to fight Jack, all of the paint is gone.
Audio problem: When Annie asks Jack what the plan is, he says something like, "Stay above 50," and we hear Annie reply, "Nice plan," but her lips don't move.
Character mistake: When Jack introduces Annie to his boss after the explosion at the airport he calls him Lieutenant McMahon but when the credits come up at the end of the film he is named as Captain McMahon.
Factual error: In the scene where Keanu Reeves attempts to stop the subway train, he accelerates the train by pushing the handle forward. In the LA Transit System, the train is stopped by pushing the handle forward.
Revealing mistake: In the scene where Payne is waiting for the money to be dropped into the bin, he looks through the blinds out onto the street. When he lifts up the blind with his 'bad' hand, you can see his fingers and thumb taped up out of the way.
Revealing mistake: In the scene where Jack and Annie escape from beneath the bus via a trap door, the shot of them skidding across the runway shows a ring on Jack's left hand as it is wrapped around Annie. Jack is not married in the movie, but his stunt double must be.
Other mistake: Just after the police close the roads in front of the news crews and the black police chopper lands in the road. There is a scene where the bus passes under a flyover with a police escort but the police car in front of the bus nearly stops, making the bus brake hard and nearly stop, bringing it well below 50 mph.
Continuity mistake: When the LAPD are making the money drop, one shot from Dennis Hopper's apartment shows a businessman walking past the garbage can with a silver briefcase (just as the garbage man comes), and the same man with the silver briefcase walks past about a minute later in another shot when Keanu Reeves is running towards the bin.
Continuity mistake: After the bus driver looks at the note "Bomb on Bus" he starts decreasing speed. So Keanu puts the Jaguar beside the bus and tells the bus driver to open the door for him to tell the driver to go at a speed of 50 miles per hour. Just before this you can see a camera shot in which the door is already open. This mistake is easily seen if you watch it in slow motion.
Factual error: At the airport, Jack attempts to disarm the bus bomb from underneath, on a dolly towed by another vehicle. Meanwhile, Annie must continue driving the bus in circles on the runway at a speed above 50 mph. This scene takes 8 minutes, meaning Annie makes at least 2 laps of the entire 2-mile-long runway, complete with turns at the ends. There is no way that the towed dolly could remain positioned directly underneath the bus through the turns, as Jack would have swung out under centrifugal force.
Continuity mistake: When the bus hits the back of the car on the tow truck, it appears that the hit is hard enough to launch the car up the ramp and over the front of the truck, but there is no damage to the front of the bus.
Continuity mistake: When Annie hits her head after jumping the gap on the road you can see a cut. The cut changes shape throughout the whole movie.
Visible crew/equipment: The first bus explodes, and the traffic on the road mysteriously disappears. If you look down the road, there are construction barriers blocking off the entire road, which would not allow any cars to drive through.
Factual error: According to the TV announcer, the bus went from the Santa Monica Freeway to Western Avenue to the 105 freeway. Two problems would have occurred. First, the Western Avenue exit from the SM freeway is way too narrow to safely make a turn at such high speed. Second, there is no onramp from Western Avenue to the 105 in any direction.
Visible crew/equipment: When the bus is jumping the gap in the bridge, if you look closely in one shot, Sandra Bullock is not driving. Instead it's a large man that appears to be wearing women's attire.
Revealing mistake: As the bus makes the impossible right turn at high speed, you can see the outrigger wheels underneath to stop the bus going over.
Factual error: Near the end of the movie, the villain shoots the operator of the subway car. In all rail transportation situations I am aware of, an operator falling from his seat would immediately cause the train to slow to a controlled stop. It's called the "dead man's switch." Obviously does not happen in this movie.
Continuity mistake: The bus hits many cars in the movie, yet there is virtually no damage sustained by the bus throughout.
Suggested correction: If you have to use slow motion to see something, it's not a mistake.
Sacha ★