The Jackal
The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Bruce Willis is driving his car to the abandoned warehouse to get the "gun" to commit the assassination on the first lady, the vehicle does not have a license plate... You can see that it is missing, plain as day... In the next scene, he pulls a switch, removing a once non-existent plate and replacing it with another. (00:45:50 - 00:49:15)

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Suggested correction: These scenes take place at least half a day apart. The shot where he has no licence plate is during mid day. There is then an unknown time laps to night time after he's left that area and hanging out at a restaurant eating. There is plenty of time between these moments for him to have stopped and attached a licence plate to his van. Reasons for this happening are never shown or stated but it's not unreasonable to think that he could have removed the plates to go to one location and then added plates to go somewhere else in one of his ways of masking his movements. In fact, when he's going into the parking garage to spray off the paint on his van, he even changes out his licence plate at that point showing that he has multiple. This is just speculation but there's enough backing that this can not be considered a definitive mistake.

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Continuity mistake: When the Jackal is using the mirror in the shop window to look at the guys watching him, just before he turns to look at it as he's checking his glasses, you can see a man walk up to the car in the reflection. It then cuts to closer angle with the mirror blurry for a split second before coming back into focus. And now there's nobody beside the car yet in the reflection until two people walk up to it. (00:47:00)

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The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When the Jackal sees that some men are watching him, he heads into a Cyber Cafe. When walking up the cashier is at his desk with his arm down at his side, a black wrist band on his arm. The very next shot from inside, the cashier now suddenly has his arm up against his face. The Jackal then walks up to him and asks to use a computer, which the guy them responds with sure and looks back down at what he was reading. His arm still up at his head. The Jackal then heads towards a computer and the angle changes again, and now suddenly the cashier's arm is back down. (00:47:10)

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The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: On the FBI's private jet, while discussing the Jackal, Preston has a book on the table in front of him. The book's edge is nearly perfectly running parallel to the edge of the table and is a good 2-4 inches away from the edge. When Koslova smarts off to Declan about how he got caught, getting up to walk towards another part of the plane, the camera cuts to a different angle as Declan watches her in a stunned expression. Suddenly now Preston's book is crooked with the bottom corner of it almost right at the edge of the table. (00:52:30)

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The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: After the Jackal sets down the equipment for the gun, he flips the lid off the ammo box and lets it tumble down onto the ground in front of it. You can see the lid fall flat upside down still under the tarp of the gun. Once the Jackal uncovers it and then bends down to pick up ammo from the box, neither he nor Lemont touch the lid. But in the next shot with him standing up to put the bullets into the gun, the lid of the ammo box is now propped up against the box. A few moments later, after Jackal tells Lemont to shut his mouth, the lid is back where it was before lying on the ground upside down. (00:55:25)

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The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: After the Jackal takes the tarp off the gun and you see the lens cover sleeve, we then see another shot with the tarp lying on the ground behind the weapon where the Jackal would sit. The lens cover sleeve is not visible anywhere yet. But then a minute later after he's firing the gun up and getting it ready, the shot shows the tarp behind the Jackal, and now the lens cover sleeve is sitting on top of the tarp in clear view. (00:55:40 - 00:57:05)

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The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Bruce Willis turns the big gun on Lemont, the ammo feed belt falls out. The next time you see the weapon the ammo feed belt has been placed back in. (00:58:20)

Continuity mistake: When The Jackal points the large weapon at Lemont after the first test fire, you can see some smoke still coming out of the barrel from shots showing Lemont's face. But in reverse angles of The Jackal, the smoke is gone. (00:58:25)

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The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: The Jackal tells Lemont to run, and as he turns his head to give the Jackal a questioning look, his hair becomes noticeably more sweaty between shots. As well as a strand of hair is now raked over his forehead whereas before it was clear. (00:58:35)

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Continuity mistake: When the Jackal shoots Lamont, only the lower arm is shot off. Then we cut to the Jackal, who says 'I told you it was off', and when we cut back to Lamont, the arm is cut way up at the shoulder. (01:00:30)

The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When the Jackal is sailing over the Great Lake, he sees the coast guard and puts his hat on. In the shot where he is putting it on, there is only one boat behind him with a yellow sail. It cuts to the coast guard then back to the Jackal, and now there are 6 boats behind him, none with a yellow sail, and the sun is no longer visibly behind him reflecting off the water. The director stated that this happened because the shot where he puts the hat on was a reshoot. The shot with the 6 boats behind him was filmed in Lake Michigan, whereas the other shot was done in the Atlantic Ocean. (01:07:30)

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The Jackal mistake picture Video

Continuity mistake: During the briefing on the hood of the car, after the regatta, both Mulqueen and McMurphy change positions at the cut from wide to closeup. Mulqueen is at the side of the car in the wide shot with his arms crossed, then leaning against the car with his hands on the hood in the close up. McMurphy is about a foot behind Preston in the wide to right beside him in the closeup then back again. Also Koslova lights her cigarette twice during the scene. (01:08:20)

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The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: At the marina, around the time the kids burn the firecrackers, the Russian Major is smoking a cigarette. In one shot it's slightly bent, then in the next it's straight. (01:08:40)

Continuity mistake: After the mole in the FBI room is discovered and escorted out, Preston shuts the door and steps back into the room. In this shot you see two of the FBI sitting on a couch next to the door. The one on the left has his left arm relaxed beside him and the one on the right is looking straight forward. It then cuts to a close up of them before the guy on the left speaks, and now his arm is ridged with his fist balled on the couch, and the guy on the right is now suddenly looking to the right. (01:17:10)

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The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: At Isabella's house, Koslova is walking with her into the kitchen as the FBI is placing her in protection. As they are walking, Koslova has nothing in her mouth and as the camera pans around, she starts to lift her right arm up to her face with her cigarette in her right hand. The camera cuts to a frontal view of her, and suddenly she has a cigarette in her mouth and is now taking it out with her left hand. (01:18:45)

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Continuity mistake: As the helicopter is coming down for Declan and Preston, in the wide shot Declan is standing outside the car leaning against the door facing forward. But as the chopper draws near, he turns his body around and looks at it. It then cuts to a close up of him and suddenly he's facing forward again. (01:20:30)

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The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: Once the Jackal sets off the music at Isabella's house, making Koslova rush outside, the other FBI agent upstairs starts running down them when the Jackal shoots him though the stairs, leaving many bullet holes. As he falls down the stairs though, they seem clean and unscathed. A few shots later as the Jackal is coming out from under the stairs, you can now see there is damage to them. Most notably the large chunk of splintered wood on the 5th step up that appears. (01:22:45)

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The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: When Witherspoon is shot in the head by The Jackal, we see a large blood splat hit the wall behind him. But later as Declan is running through the house while the FBI and paramedics are there, he runs past this same spot and now the blood splat is much closer to the corner of the wall. (01:24:30 - 01:27:00)

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The Jackal mistake picture

Continuity mistake: The Jackal kills Witherspoon, who stumbles back against the stairwell wall and is in a sitting position. He's seen behind Koslova as she's kneeling behind the couch trying to shoot the Jackal back. Witherspoon's body is then shown again after the Jackal shoots Koslova and is approaching her as she tries to crawl away. Witherspoon's body changes positions in several ways. Most notably, his head is now sitting more straight up and closer to the doorknob. His legs are bent up more with his feet now almost touching the table leg. And also the rug he is on is bunched up more, having only 1 large bump before, but now having two. (01:24:50 - 01:25:20)

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Continuity mistake: When The Jackal approaches Koslova after shooting her, his rifle is loose in his right hand. After he pushes her to the ground we cut to Koslova and the assassin is holding the rifle with both of his hands. (01:25:25)

Continuity mistake: Near the end of the movie, the Jackal tries to kill the first lady in Washington. This is where the hospital opening takes place. When he flees into the subway station, the name it has is indeed of a station in Washington (Capitol Heights), the subway-cars however are from the Montreal subway system (which ride around on rubber tyres). (01:45:10 - 01:47:55)

More mistakes in The Jackal
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Isabella: Some nights I can close my eyes... and sleep... and no dead faces come to wake me. That's... that's more than I ever had. You wouldn't have me give that up, would you?
Declan Mulqueen: Give me some credit, will ya?
(00:36:40)

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Trivia: Just a few months before his death at age 91, Fred Zinnermann, who directed the original The Day of the Jackal (1973), on which this movie is based, actually fought Universal Studios to change the name of the film. Saying that the original had stood the test of time and he did not want the remake to bear the same name. (00:01:25)

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More trivia for The Jackal

Question: Why didn't Koslova try to fight while the Jackal is talking to her?

Answer: Because she's dying, in shock, losing blood, and in pain.

raywest

Answer: She's in too much pain to fight. He also just helped her to slow her bleeding, after that she seems to weirdly trust him.

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