Continuity mistake: In the beginning when Clarice and co. are in the van, there is a shot of Clarice sleeping on her back. The next shot shows her sleeping on her side in a foetal position, and then it shifts back to her sleeping on her back when she opens her eyes. (00:04:33)
Continuity mistake: When Evelda Drumgo's henchmen discover the presence of the police there is a coffee cup and a light blue holdall on the bonnet of their car. The car then reverses at high speed and the cup falls off but the bag shows no signs of budging. Then, a split-second later, the scene cuts to the car reversing into a parked white van. The blue bag has mysteriously disappeared. But, a few cuts later (just after the one where an agent is showered with sparks) you see the car speeding towards the camera and both the coffee cup and the bag have reappeared (although you have to be quick to spot it). (00:08:46)
Continuity mistake: When Clarice got the tapes from Barney, he told her that the doctor had started taping her AFTER her first session with Hannibal. Some of the conversations that she listens to took place on her very first visit to see him so there shouldn't be any tapes at all of those. (00:27:15)
Continuity mistake: When Clarice is opening the letter written to her by Hannibal, it is sealed with wax, and not glued down in any way. While she's reading it, Hannibal is shown licking an envelope. (00:32:05)
Continuity mistake: While Clarice stares at Hannibal's letter, we can hear Hannibal reading it aloud. He says, "Your father, the dead night watchman, figures largely in your value system." Yet on the paper it's, "figures large in your value system." (00:33:45)
Continuity mistake: Dr. Lecter signs M.D. with small letters, but when Clarice is reading it, the letters are much bigger. Also, he originally only does a line across the top of "Lecter", but when she gets the letter it's across his whole name. There's also a hyphen between Hannibal Lecter and M.D. in the received version, but not when he sends it. Note: This is nothing to do with the re-mailing service - all they did was send the letter to a different location, not re-write it. (00:34:12)
Continuity mistake: While Clarice reads Hannibal's letter and Hannibal narrates it, Lecter says, "Do you imagine your Daddy BEING shamed by your disgrace?" but what's written is: "Do you imagine Daddy shamed by your disgrace?" (00:34:20)
Continuity mistake: While Hannibal narrates what Clarice is reading on his letter, Hannibal concludes by saying, "I imagine you sitting in a dark basement room, bent over papers and computer screens. Is that accurate? Please tell me truly, Special Agent Starling. Your old pal, Hannibal Lecter, M.D." But on the letter's second page he writes, "... 200 hawk, one wiring hanging down. Is that fairly accurate? Tell me truly, Special Agent Starling. Regards, Hannibal Lecter, M.D." (00:35:20)
Continuity mistake: On the letter, the P.S. read by Hannibal ends with, "So I'm not sure how well I should wish you, but I'm sure we'll have a lot of fun. Ta ta H." But when Krendler looks at the letter on the board, the P.S. ends with, "I'm not sure how well to wish you. Ta ta H." (00:35:40 - 00:44:05)
Continuity mistake: When Clarice is listening to the tapes from her conversation with Lecter from the first film, Lecter says "You don't have any more vacations to sell to Anthrax Island". But in the original conversation in Silence of the Lambs, Lecter only says "You don't have any more vacations to sell". He never said "...to Anthrax Island". This is arguably a double mistake, as it's part of the conversation that could never have been recorded in the first place anyway. (00:37:10)
Continuity mistake: The third perfume expert grabs Hannibal's letter with a pair of tweezers on its bottom right corner. In the next shot, he's holding the letter on the top edge. (00:37:35)
Continuity mistake: In the scene when Rinaldo Pazzi (the Italian investigator later disembowelled by Hannibal) is searching on the internet, he types in a search "Hannibal Lecter reward", which returns one match. The match contains the URL and a preview of the page, which gives the first sentence. That sentence however, incorrectly identifies the year of Hannibal's escape as being 1992; however when Rinaldo clicks on the link, the actual page lists the correct date as being 1990 in exactly the same sentence. [An extra comment - if you look closely, as soon as he clicks on the link the page opens, and we see a close-up of Lecter's face - just visible at the top right you can see the date 1992 mentioned. Then it cuts out to a wider shot of the whole page, and the date's magically changed to 1990]. (00:41:17)
Continuity mistake: When Inspector Pazzi is in the phone booth calling the FBI at 1-212-555-0118, he doesn't dial the correct number. (00:47:53)
Continuity mistake: When the Italian Police Inspector is on the phone in the middle of the street with Verger's answering machine, you can see in three consecutive shots the same extra crossing the plaza (a young brunette with a black spaghetti string top). (00:48:35)
Continuity mistake: In the scene where Pazzi goes to pick up Dr. Fell's belongings from Hannibal Lector at the Palazzo Capponi, when the camera is first on Lector he is wearing tracksuit bottoms, and then the camera switches to Pazzi and back to Lector, and he is wearing different trousers - pyjama type. (00:51:19)
Continuity mistake: When the hogs are attacking the dummy in Sardinia, the dummy's head changes from being orange-colored and very fake looking, to realistically fleshy and brown in the close up. (01:01:15)
Continuity mistake: When Inspector Pazzi introduces 'Dr. Fell' to his wife, in a wider shot she has her hand on her husband's shoulder, just sliding off as the shot cuts. In the closer shot we cut to, however, her hand's back on his shoulder. (01:04:53)
Continuity mistake: When Hannibal attacks Francesco after the lecture, their shadows, as well as the entire body of the hanged man in the projected picture, are seen overlapping each other in a close up of the projection screen. This is not possible, as the picture is projected from a slide projector behind them. In preceding and following long shots their shadows are correctly blocking the lower half of the body of the hanged man in the projection. (01:11:45)
Continuity mistake: When Hannibal takes the Inspector's phone, it's supposedly ringing and he speaks on it, but it's turned off - as he pulls it out past the camera we can see that the screen's blank. (01:14:00)
Continuity mistake: The first time we hear Dr. Chilton's tapes of Lecter's conversations with Starling, Hannibal's exact words are, Agent Starling is a deep roller, Barney. And yet, later in the movie we hear Clarice listen to the same conversation once more only this time he leaves out the name Barney after his question. This is infact an entirely different soundbyte, but it is supposed to be the same tape. (01:31:11)
Answer: As seen in the first film and in this one, Lecter demonstrates an almost supernatural ability for eluding the law and seemingly being in two places at once. This film was made in the year 2000, before airport security became extremely tight in late 2001. At that time (before 9/11), it was still possible to enter an airport's main concourse through the baggage claim or even from the tarmac without passing through rigorous security. As ingenious as Lecter was, he could have accessed the airport in a number of ways back then. Relieving another passenger of his boarding pass and identification would be no problem for Lecter, either (simply leave the passenger's body in an airport toilet and assume his identity). For the most part, it was Lecter's calm, self-confident charm that allowed him to slither through society always ten steps ahead of the law.
Charles Austin Miller