Continuity mistake: Exley has gauze or cotton stuffed on the left and right side of his upper lip (a la The Godfather). It's supposed to look like swelling from the unbelievable beating he just took. If you look at him closely in these several shots, the amount of cotton in his lip changes. Then later the bruises are only on his left cheek, with no swelling of his lip. (01:50:45 - 01:52:20)
Visible crew/equipment: The shadow of a boom mic moves on the bookcase, above Bud White's head, in DA Loew's office. (01:51:40)
Continuity mistake: Exley's little cow lick bangs, on the left side of his forehead, changes a lot throughout this scene. (01:52:10 - 01:53:20)
Visible crew/equipment: While Sid is interrogated at the Victory, there are only four men in the room - Sid, Bud, Dudley, and Michael Breuning. After Bud finds the photos in Sid's trunk he drives off, leaving Sid alone in the room with Dudley and Michael Breuning. When Sid is lying on the floor and says, "You can uncuff me now, fellas," we can see a crew member's right hand holding something, at the right side of the screen. (01:45:10)
Revealing mistake: When the two men in the car are shot with machine guns, there's a bump on each of their foreheads even before they're shot in the head. This bump was so it could disappear and reveal the bullet holes when the bullet hits their heads.
Continuity mistake: Right after the fight the folder behind Exley's head is yellow, yet later it changes to dark green. (01:48:25 - 01:51:05)
Other mistake: In the fight scene, Exley hits all the soft boxes, but he rams his head into his hands so he doesn't hit the hard file cabinet. (01:48:50)
Audio problem: When Bud White meets Captain Dudley for a drink in the bar, he says, "What do you want, Captain?" but his mouth moves to a different sentence. (00:22:40)
Continuity mistake: In the final shoot out, Dudley Smith shoots Bud White in the right cheek as Bud stabs Dudley in the leg with his knife. Later, when you see Bud sitting in the car, he has bandages and tape only on his left cheek, and his right cheek is completely okay.
Factual error: When Kim Basinger is watching the film of Veronica Lake in her house, we hear the dialogue... but the projector is not a sound projector. It can't be a separate audio tape because she only turned off the projector, but the sounds stopped at the same time. (00:41:15)
Visible crew/equipment: When Ed Exley and Jack Vincennes are driving around looking for the alleged Nite Owl murder suspects, spotlights can be seen in the reflection of Vincennes' sunglasses.
Character mistake: White says Exley's father died in the line of duty. Exley said he was off duty when he was shot, and he didn't correct him.
Continuity mistake: When White shoots Fitch in the chest, at first there's only a little blood around the bullet hole, but in the next shot there's instantly much more blood.
Answer: Exley is suggesting two things: to shift some blame to three officers with secured pensions and forcing them to retire; when he refers to White and Stensland though, he is saying "someone has to swing" and that they should be charged, tried and imprisoned - so Stensland is not entitled to a pension.
Sierra1 ★