Continuity mistake: As Richie and his partner watch the red Bronco leave the car wash, we see that the driver's door window is about one-third up from the bottom. But as the Cadillac starts moving, the window is fully open. (01:00:40)
Continuity mistake: During the Bronco-following scenes, the silver Cadillac goes back and forth between having (during interior shots) and not having an antenna on the fender on Richie's side of the Cadillac. This is because the interior scenes were filmed using a Ford Torino, not the Cadillac. (01:00:45)
Continuity mistake: At the end, when the church doors open, the door on the right opens all the way in the first shot then begins to slowly close back. It is then wide open in the following shot from the other side.
Continuity mistake: When Russell Crowe and the other cop are chasing a crook through a hotel room, Crowe gets pinched in a doorway by the crook with the door. The crook starts to bite Crowe's hand, so Crowe signals the other cop to smash the crook's head through the door with a mallet. When the cop does, he uses the handle end, and in the next shot, when he's pulling the mallet out back through the door, it's coming out with the hammer-head end first.
Suggested correction: This is incorrect. The mallet goes through the door handle first, then the door opens and we see the mallet end.
Continuity mistake: During the big drug bust, Russell Crowe pursues a suspect down a hallway and then down a fire escape. Along the way, he cocks the shotgun multiple times.
Continuity mistake: In the car-follow scene in which Russell Crowe yells at the cop driving their car to follow a car into NYC, in outside shots, the car they're in is a Cadillac. But in shots from the interior, the nameplate on the dashboard says it's a Ford Torino.
Continuity mistake: In the opening scene, just after the man is set afire he falls to the ground. Frank shoots him and while firing his weapon jams. A casing is stuck in the ejection port (called a stovepipe when it happens). After the round sticks he continues to pull the trigger and the weapon continues to fire.
Continuity mistake: In the first minute of movie beginning, the man on the chair has blood on his clothes, then when Denzel Washington wanted to burn him the blood has gone.
Continuity mistake: In the final scene where Frank Lucas is released, an extra comes into the shot from the right while the gate behind him is opening. Then it goes to a wide shot and the same extra walks into the frame from the right again as the gate is closing.
Continuity mistake: Near the end of the movie, when Richie stops by Joey Sadano's house for the last time, he exits the car with snowflakes flying. He even shivers and warms himself walking up to the house. Inside the house the snowflakes are still flying outside Joey's back window, yet the entire backdrop shows a lush landscape full of green trees in mid-summer glory.
Continuity mistake: When Bumpy enters the shop the amount of people outside changes at least three times.
