Plot hole: After the kidnappers kill the trooper and then one chases after the 2 eyewitnesses you can see that they are on a straight road (no turns and he catches up to them fairly quickly) but the next morning when Marge arrives on the scene of the 2 bodies she arrives from the direction of the trooper's body (the first shooting). After examining the bodies of the eyewitnesses she asks her deputy "where the trooper is" and the Deputy points in the direction she just came from and states "down the road a bit" how did she miss it? She would have had to have driven right past the trooper's crime scene to get to the 2 bodies.
Factual error: This film takes place in 1987, but when Norm Gunderson is talking to Marge about his paintings, he mentions a 29 cent stamp. 29 cent stamps weren't introduced until 1991.
Suggested correction: He mentions "who got" the 29-cents stamp, meaning a person's painting was selected to be on the UPCOMING 29-cents stamp. I don't know if it would take four years to actually manufacture a new stamp with a particular picture (painting), but this "planning" stage would more than likely mean that the 29-cents stamp was not yet (and would not be) available in 1987. Perhaps your entry could be more accurately classified as "other error" instead of "factual"?
Plot hole: The two kidnappers are pulled over by the cop they eventually murder because they are not displaying temporary tags on their car. However, when Marge Gunderson shows up to investigate the crime scene the next morning, she figures out from the cop's citation book that the car had dealer plates (DLR.) If the car had dealer plates, they wouldn't need to display temporary tags, as tags are to be used when a license plate is not yet available for a car. There was no need to pull the kidnappers over, which makes the turning point of the story completely pointless.
Suggested correction: Temporary tags have a non-unique number and the designation of the dealer on them, the cop put down DLR and was then going to put the dealer's number when they produced the temporary tag which they said they had forgotten to place in the window. On a temporary tag, the "tag number" is either the date the temporary tag expires or one of a limited number assigned to that dealer so it is not unusual to see duplicate temporary tags on different cars on the same day - you would need the dealer's number which is rather small at the bottom of the paper to actually identify the car.
But the point is that the police officer said he pulled them over because they were displaying no tag. If there had been a dealer tag on the car, then why would the officer have pulled them over? That's what a dealer tag is for: so a car can be driven displaying it. Yet everything that happens after that is predicated on the officer having begun to write out the number *on their tag*.
Suggested correction: They probably just had the generic plastic dealership logo plate on. Not an actual dealer plate with a number, but something with a logo and "Gustafson Motors" on it (or whatever the name of the car lot was).
That means they have no tags and the cop wouldn't write DLR. A logo with the dealer's name isn't a dealer tag.
Suggested correction: The trooper wasn't visible from the road, he was dragged into the ditch. She also could have been asking if he was in the hospital or morgue.
rswarrior