Continuity mistake: At the fair Stephen throws Lipnicki on the ground. When he gets up his shirt pocket is torn although Lipnicki doesn't touch it during their short fight, as you can see in slow motion. (00:53:00)
Revealing mistake: In one of the war flashbacks Stephen carries the wounded Dodge through a trench. They pass by a screaming pig, but in slow motion you can see that it's just a motionless carcass. (01:01:05)
Revealing mistake: In one of the war flashbacks Stephen approaches a helicopter that is about to take off. You hear the rotor move fast, but the grass around the helicopter is completely still. (01:02:00)
Revealing mistake: Billy buys about 20 bars of ice-cream, carries them home, and is shown lying in the yard, nibbling slowly on almost the last of them which is still cold and solid. (01:18:20)
Continuity mistake: When Billy eats all the ice-cream he is shown lying in the yard in a bathtub, with all the empty wrappers spread around. When his father finds him he is lying on some wooden steps, again with all the wrappers scattered around. (01:18:35)
Other mistake: The kids dare each other in a decrepit water tower which is mysterious in a number of ways: 1) Draining the water causes a powerful vortex, but the water level is not going down. 2) No one seems to work the bottom valve, but the vortex comes and goes. 3) It is absolutely impossible that anyone could swim through such a vortex, but Stu does. 4) The rotten roof breaks under the weight of little Billy (the ice-cream excess?) but carries his brother who weighs about 4 times as much. (01:27:00)
Plot hole: Stephen dies after he was "taken off machines", at least so his wife tells the kids. But when he was shown in the hospital he was attached to no life-supporting machines except an oxygen tube in his nose. (01:33:25)
Continuity mistake: When Billy falls through the top of the water tower, there's a large hole in it. It disappears later.
Continuity mistake: In a flashback scene to when Elijah Wood's house is being demolished, the whole house, including the brick fireplace fall. When Elijah Wood approaches the house site and Kevin Costner is sitting there, the brick fireplace is still standing.
