Continuity mistake: When Ben is taking the screws out of the case that holds the Declaration of Independence, the first screw we see him removing is the one in the little "compartment" with an extra little rod across. There are three little compartments with this extra rod across and he is removing the screw from the left-most compartment. Next we see him removing the screw from the compartment just to the left of the previous compartment, but that screw is now back in place. The next time we see him removing a screw, it is again, one compartment to the left and again, the compartment to the right, the one he just removed the screw from, is back in place.
Continuity mistake: When Ben and Ian stand at the corner of Broadway and Wall Street, while they are talking to each other, you can see people in the background passing Ben, but they never pass Ian. And, when Ian asks Ben where the treasure is, you can see a black guy wearing a blue shirt passing Ben in the background. 10 seconds later you can see the same guy pass Ben again. (01:31:00)
Continuity mistake: Right after the scene where the FBI break into Ben's apartment, Ian is puzzling over the clue from the Charlotte. He circles the phrase "in silence" but when he holds the notepad up to his friends, only the word "silence" is circled.
Continuity mistake: When Ben finds the glasses at Independence Hall, it is 3:20 because of daytime savings time. However when the bad guys chase Abigail and Riley in the market they pass a large clock showing the time to be 2:37. (01:12:15 - 01:17:10)
Suggested correction: Actually, many places at a market like that sell old antiques and even old clocks. That could simply be one of them. Even if it was supposed to tell time, people often forget to set their clocks forward or back for Daylight Savings Time, and that could have happened here. Many of the clocks at my home and school are currently like that.
Continuity mistake: When Riley starts down the smugglers' hold his bag is on his left side but when it shows him landing, his bag is now on the right.
Continuity mistake: When Ian and Ben are sitting on a couple of barrels discussing what the riddle means, there are a couple of balls hanging from chains very close to Ian's head. A scene or two later, there are a couple of oblong, round, flat bottomed things hanging down next to Ian's head that actually brush against the fur on his hood. Next scene, nothing is close to his head and then the balls come back and then nothing again.
Continuity mistake: As Ian watches our heroes leave Independence Hall the clock in the tower reads 3:27. That gave Ben only five minutes to climb down the tower, dig out the brick, meet up downstairs, unroll the Declaration and decipher it, realize they're being followed, plan their escape and leave. It took me longer to write all of that.
Continuity mistake: When we see Ian's men pull up over the grate that they are going to go down through to get to the National Archive, we see the street wet so it had to have rained, been hosed down, etc. But when one of Ian's men drops a large bag down, it whirls up a huge cloud of dust when it lands. This shouldn't have happened because there was nothing over the tunnel but a grate and some water would have gone down the tunnel, wetting the dust.
Continuity mistake: As Viktor is driving the catering van while Abigail is still in the back, we see the windshield get cracked near the bottom left. It gets hit by at least two more things but the next time we see a full shot of the windshield, it is perfect.
Continuity mistake: Near the beginning of the movie when Ben, Ian and Riley are in snow CATS and we see Riley's computer screen, viewed a little from the left, and there is a jiggling hula dancer, supposedly mounted on his keyboard surface. In the background, a window has popped up showing the location and route of the two CATS. Then we hear alarm go off and we see almost the same shot but a little closer in on the computer screen. The hula girl is missing. The difference in angle and "zoom level" could not account for not seeing the hula girl in the second shot.
Continuity mistake: Ben dipped the George Washington button in a liquid solution. But, when he puts it into the gift box, it is considerably larger than before he dips it.
Continuity mistake: When Gates is arrested by the FBI you see Riley and Chase coming around the corner twice. (01:21:50)
Continuity mistake: When they get ready to climb into the tunnel left by removing the coffin, Ian says, "McGregor, Phil. You stay here." When you see the people coming through the tunnel, it's not Viktor and Shaw as you would expect but Shaw and McGregor. Don't know if Sean blew his line, the writers got the characters mixed up or the actors blew it, but something went amiss.
Continuity mistake: When Riley is sitting in the car waiting for Ben, the window is gone and shards of glass can be seen in the window frame, but there has been no shooting yet. Later, the window is back and then it gets hit by a bullet and shatters.
Continuity mistake: The school boy is counting letters on the Dogood letters and runs out to give them to Riley. As he crosses the street, he passes a cab and a Taurus station wagon. On his second trip out, he passes the same two cars again.
Continuity mistake: When Ben is trying to grab Abigail from Ian's vehicle, we see a bus coming. There is a car on the right side of the bus (Riley's left side) in that shot. We then see Viktor stepping on the brake and Riley start pulling to the left of the bus; when Riley swing around to that side to miss the bus, the car has disappeared.
Continuity mistake: When Gates and Riley are talking in front of the Lincoln Memorial, the clouds in the background change. It would be possible that they change so quickly during the shots, but only if there was a gale and not sunny weather as it is in the movie. (00:27:00)
Continuity mistake: When Riley is first looking at the special glasses the lengths of the stems of the glasses change from shot to shot. Sometimes they are halfway extended and sometimes they are fully extended.
Continuity mistake: When Riley is in the Subway to install the video feed, he places his laptop on a table. On its left side there is a little antenna. When the laptop is on the ground, the antenna is horizontal. In the next shot, the antenna is already folded out in a 45° angle. (00:30:05)
Continuity mistake: When they blow the back of the Declaration with the hairdryer, Ben writes down the numbers. When he explains to Reilly how an Ottendorf cipher works we see that there are 2 columns with 17 lines each. This leaves us with a possible 34 letters. However the riddle that they decipher from the Dogood letters have 89 letters in it. After Ben writes down the last letters Abigail switches off the dryer and we can also see that it was the end of the page so there is no way that there was more space to get more letters.
