Factual error: In the scene at the beginning of the movie as the 3 youths walk up the street, you can see current MA license plates, although the action should have taken place many years earlier. (00:01:30 - 00:05:50)
Revealing mistake: When Sean Penn is in the funeral home looking at his daughter's body, when he lays the dress over her the rise and fall of the very alive actress' chest is visible as she breathes. (01:07:40)
Visible crew/equipment: When Sean Penn is picking out headstones, you can see the tracks and the wheels of the dolly for the camera being reflected in the headstone. (01:30:55)
Visible crew/equipment: Before we first see the marching band, and Kevin Bacon finds out what his daughter's name is, there is a shot looking at him in his car and he drives off screen. As the car goes out of the shot to the left, check out the reflection of the camera man in the rear driver's side window. (02:06:40)
Continuity mistake: When Penn is drinking whiskey, he puts the bottle on the table, with no hull, later it has a hull and then it's again with no hull.
Continuity mistake: When Sean Penn is being interrogated by the cops, his coffee mug is yellow in the wall angle, and white in the rest of the shots.
Factual error: In the first scene the boys are playing street hockey using sticks that have plastic blades made with holes in them for better aerodynamics. These blades were not available in the mid-70's. We know this scene is taking place in the mid-70's because Dave tells his son he was in high school from 1978-82. The scene takes place when Dave is 11, too young to have been in high school.
Continuity mistake: In the scene where Kevin Bacon and Laurence Fishburne go to Tim Robbins' house to speak to him about being in the bar on the night of the murder, they all walk down the street together, as Dave is walking his son to school. In one shot, following the men from behind, it shows them walking past a red brick building, then a blue cape cod style building. When they are about halfway past this blue building, it cuts to a shot taken from in front of them (showing their faces), in which we can see them walking past the red brick building and then the blue building again. (01:01:15)
Continuity mistake: When Boyle is interrogated by the cops, the pencil in front of him swaps from being parallel to him to slightly skewed between shots.
Character mistake: When Jimmy kills Dave, he says that he killed Just Ray when his wife was pregnant with Brendan, but she was pregnant with Ray Jr (Brendan's brother).
Suggested correction: Jimmy says pregnant wife, little Brendan.
Suggested correction: My father used to tell stories about his nieces and would constantly get their names mixed up. People often get siblings names switched around, and that is when they are in their right mind. Jimmy had been drinking, was still emotional over his daughter, and was telling the story with full intention of murdering Dave within minutes. Fully understandable that he would make this rather common error.
It might be understandable, but not so much within the context of this movie. Would the writer deliberately include in the script that a character will use the wrong name because it does happen sometimes in real life? Maybe if this were a movie about dementia or "Grumpy Old Men", but it doesn't seem to fit in this movie. [I know - not all elderly people have memory problems or lapses.].
Factual error: In the scene where young Dave Boyle is being driven away by the pedophiles, he looks out the rear window of their car and locks eyes with his friends standing in front of the street hockey goal, which is in the middle of the street. How did the car get past it?
