The Bourne Identity (2002)

Continuity mistake: At the beginning of the film, Matt Damon has a flashing light attached into his chest, then we see it's a big red battery pack attached to a light, at the end of the movie, when he is having flashbacks, the battery pack and the light are not on the wet suit he has on, and the light is not flashing when he was in the water. (00:01:46)

Continuity mistake: When Matt Damon is on the boat, his gun shot wounds are on his left shoulder blade in a horizontal line. In the hotel scene when Marie is taking off his shirt, they are diagonal between his shoulder blades. (00:02:53)

Character mistake: The laser pointer and the subtitle reads "Gemeinschaft Bank". That's wrong. It has to be Gemeinschaftsbank. (00:04:20)

Continuity mistake: When Jason goes into the bank in Switzerland for the first time, he puts his hand up to the identification plate, and then he takes it off. It reads him and allows him to go in, but the next shot shows him taking his hand off the reader again. (00:15:12)

Continuity mistake: When Bourne gets the box from his numbered bank account, the bank clerk carries it by holding its handle. Then he puts it on the table tipping it over to the side, so Bourne can open it. Thus the ingredients (especially the heavy weapon) should all be laying on the right side, what used to be the bottom of the box. But when Bourne opens it, everything is nicely arranged. (00:15:22)

Factual error: At the Zurich bank scene Jason's Russian passport is shown. The name is Foma Kiniaev as it is written in Latin letters. But the Cyrillic text isn't the same, it actually doesn't mean anything. The transcript is something like "LSTSFUM ASF". The place of birth is written as "Moscou" which is the French spelling of the name of the city. The passport is bilingual, Russian/English, so it'd be MOCKBA/MOSCOW. (00:17:11)

Continuity mistake: In the part of the embassy scene where Matt Damon starts clobbering security people, the Marine's hat falls off no less than three times. (00:21:10)

Continuity mistake: In the scene where Bourne is moving up the stairs in the embassy, as he approaches the 5th floor you see the legs and feet of someone either standing, or perhaps an evacuee. In the shot immediately following, the person is gone. (00:21:30)

Continuity mistake: Early in the film, Matt Damon is running up several flights of stairs. He is shown walking around a corner when the camera suddenly cuts to a different angle. In the new angle, he is shown running around the same corner. (00:22:27)

Continuity mistake: When Jason is on the 5th floor of the embassy looking for an exit he is holding a walkie-talkie in his right hand, wearing white earphones and carrying the red bag on his left shoulder. In the next shot the white earphones and walkie-talkie have disappeared and the red bag is suddenly on his left shoulder. The bullet hole pattern in Jason's back has also been reversed as if the scene had been flipped. (00:22:32)

Continuity mistake: When Jason breaks through the embassy fire escape door onto the outside platform the metal door has two round keyholes. However, when he climbs up onto the railings it's a different door which has a different type of lock with a rectangular keyhole cover plate. Also, initially there is a chain welded to the top of the left hand railing above a small hinge and extending across to the right-hand railing. The next shot shows the chain wrapped around a large hinge further down on the left-hand railing. (00:23:07)

Revealing mistake: When Jason climbs onto the rail of the fire escape, it is not attached to the wall - intentionally, it has not broken - but then in another shot, two seconds later, it 'breaks'. It pulls out of a visible hole in the wall, although it was never actually attached and there was no hole before. (00:23:25)

Revealing mistake: When Jason is escaping from the embassy building the railing comes away from the wall. The man hanging on the building by one hand when the red bag falls is obviously a stuntman because he has curly hair. (00:23:32)

Continuity mistake: When Bourne is escaping the embassy, he has to scale down a wall below a broken fire escape. As he is inching his way to his right, towards the corner, the shot changes to one from below, and he is suddenly about six feet lower than he was the moment before (there is a curved pipe jutting out of the wall that allows you to easily judge his actual position.) (00:23:33)

Continuity mistake: This is the scene where Jason is on the fire escape platform in the consulate in Zurich. Before he goes down below the platform we see that the platform is cleared of all the snow. Then moments later, when security guard opens the door and Jason is under the platform, the top of the platform is fully covered with snow again. (00:23:46)

Continuity mistake: When Bourne is escaping from the Embassy, he drops the bag, which hits some metal thing on the way down, making it wobble to and fro. The camera cuts away while it's still moving and we see the marines coming upstairs. When Bourne climbs under the fire escape, we can see down to the ground and the metal thing's stopped moving. All well and good, except after the marines leave Bourne looks down, and in that shot the metal thing is moving again, then stops - obviously the rest of the shot we saw before. (00:23:46)

Jon Sandys ★

Continuity mistake: When Bourne approaches Marie about a ride, they talk across the top of her Mini. First, there is lots of snow on the car's roof. Then, there isn't. (00:25:40)

Continuity mistake: In the scene where all the Treadstone agents are being contacted, we see Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. In the first shot of the building we see cranes standing next to it. In the next shot, the cranes have disappeared. (00:27:00)

Factual error: On the way from Zurich to Paris there's an Aral gas station. There are no Aral gas stations in Switzerland or France, only in Germany and Luxembourg. (00:34:00)

Visible crew/equipment: After Bourne and Marie get to Paris, Bourne is sleeping and Marie awakens him. Shortly after he gets out of the car you can see a crew member's head reflected in the rear right window. (00:34:25)

sebb ★