Plot hole: At the beginning of the film, it is still daylight, which at Christmas, would mean it's about 4:30pm at the latest. The whole incident of the film lasts around 4 hours (figured by the scene when Barnes was talking to the planes and said the trouble started around 2 hours ago coupled with the fact that not long before that, Trudeau confimed that Holly's plane had only 90 minutes worth of fuel left). So why at the very end are there shots where it appears the the sun is rising in the distance? (And no, it's not caused by the fire of the exploded plane. By that reckoning, the terroists would have had to have taken over the airport well after midnight, which is pretty much impossible since Esperanza's plane was already on route.) (00:00:35)
Continuity mistake: After McClane gets the car towed away, notice that it is night and snowstorming all over the place. When he enters the airport, you can see that outside it is daytime and sunny, yet McClane shakes off snow whereas other people in the airport don't have snow on them at all. The airport scenes were filmed at LAX's Bradley International Terminal during the month of February, so this explains the sunny day. (00:01:35)
Factual error: The payphone McClane uses in Dulles airport has the "Pacific Bell" logo. Pacific Bell is a West Coast phone company. (00:04:20)
Factual error: Near the beginning of the film when John McClane goes to the pay phone and calls his wife Holly on the airplane, that was impossible at the time. Those phones you see on the seats on the plane can only be used from the air to the ground not the other way around. Holly does answer on the plane phone and not on any cell phone she had in her purse. Not to mention even if it was possible to call the planes from the ground, they could do that to warn them of what's going on below and prevent more crashes. (00:04:20)
Continuity mistake: Two guys dressed in red go to the church and are let in by the old man. One of the men then says something like "You were right about that," and the scene shows him shoot his gun with his arm outstretched (obviously). The next scene though of the old man falling backwards shows the shooter's arm down by his side, however in the next scene where it cuts back to the shooter his arm is outstretched with the gun again. (00:07:30)
Deliberate mistake: When the terrorists shoot a man in the church and he falls on his back, both benches behind him topple (in the shot from the ceiling of the church). You can't see that the benches are connected and even if they were, the bench he doesn't actually touch wouldn't topple. (00:07:35)
Continuity mistake: In the beginning of the movie when John is sitting at a table in the airport smoking a cigarette, you see him notice the table with the 3 (2 white and 1 black) guys that are acting suspicious. When the black guy gets up to leave, he leans down and you see a hand grab a package. If you notice, the hand that grabs the package is white. Later when the two white guys leave, one of them leans down to grab the package and it's the same shot that was used when the black guy grabbed his package. (00:08:50)
Continuity mistake: When McClane is lying on the conveyor, and he picks up his gun, just before the camera switches to the terrorist, you see the slide on the Beretta go back into the empty position, but when the camera changes, you hear another shot from McClane's gun. (00:13:15)
Revealing mistake: Obvious stunt double for the black terrorist during the fight with McClane in the baggage area. He looks younger than him and has a different hairstyle. (00:14:10)
Revealing mistake: When John is fighting in the baggage area and he and the bad guy fall off one of the conveyors, you can see it is not Bruce Willis as he's falling. (00:15:00)
Revealing mistake: On one of the first shots of inside Holly's plane, you can see the blue screens through the windows. No, it's not blue sky, in all the following shots the sky outside is orange. (00:16:30)
Factual error: When McClane (Bruce Willis) is brought into Capt. Lorenzo's (Dennis Franz) office at Dulles Airport for the first time, Lorenzo mentions that McClane was in violation of several District of Columbia laws. Dulles Airport is in Virginia, not DC, therefore any DC laws would not apply to Dulles. (Although VA may very well have similar laws about airport misconduct.) (00:19:55)
Revealing mistake: When the soldier is lighting General Esperanza's cigar while Esperanza is still a prisoner in transport, the cigar is visibly already lit before the soldier's lighter brushes over the cigar. (00:24:30)
Factual error: In the scene where Bruce Willis faxes the finger prints of Oswald Cochrane to Sgt. Al Powell in LA, I don't see how you can determine the prints through a fax. They would appear as blobs on the other end, especially with faxes of that era. (00:24:45)
Revealing mistake: Right after they realise they have to get the planes in a holding pattern to clear the runways of snow, you can see a shot of Holly's plane. This is a model (Look at the clouds; they don't change shape that fast) and the fact that the lights on the wings are flipped. The right wing always has a green light, the left wing always has a red light. In this shot, the lights are reversed but not the logo. So it's not a mirrored image; it is a model. Also the lights on the top are LEDs in a strip. (00:27:38)
Factual error: Just before Col. Stewart activates his equipment, we can see one of his men working with a welding torch on telecommunication equipment. You can't patch telco connections using a welder. (00:28:50)
Plot hole: When McClane gets kicked out of the control tower and is sent down in the elevator with Coleman he quite obviously stops the elevator before saying "Here's a couple of words, F**k off." to Coleman. He then opens the top panel and climbs out WITHOUT restarting the elevator. Almost as soon as he has closed the panel again the elevator has reached the bottom and the cops are asking "Where's the other one?" As it is meant to be a single shot and there is no delay we know Coleman did not start the elevator again herself. (00:38:25)
Revealing mistake: In the skywalk scene, when McClane pushes the paint stand on the terrorist, it is quite obvious that they use a dummy when the paint stand falls on the terrorist and crushes him. (00:45:05)
Continuity mistake: The dead bodies of the SWAT team move around on the escalator between shots. The best example of this is after the last SWAT guy dies, there is a body or two near the end of the escalator. They disappear or at least move much further away after McClane drops his gun on the escalator. And all this happens while the escalator is not moving. (00:45:15 - 00:48:00)
Other mistake: When the platform falls on top of McClane and he drops his gun, I don't see how it would land more than six feet away from him. One foot at the most. Unless of course it was made of rubber. (00:47:05)
Answer: Because the police were moments away from arriving at the scene. They needed as much time to get away without being tracked. Every moment counts. And a target rocking about a few hundred feet in the air doesn't seem to be such an "easy target".
XIII