Continuity mistake: When Andy talks to his mother on the phone about the latest news on his illness she asks him "How are your platelets?". The subtitles read "How are my platelets?". (00:07:50)
Continuity mistake: Towards the beginning of the movie, after Andy talks to his mother on the phone, they flash the time "10:15", but the chime in the background is indicative of ":30" (00:08:15)
Continuity mistake: When Bob Seidman comes to invite Andy to Wheeler's office the chopsticks in Andy's Chinese takeaway change from sticking out together to being separated from one shot to the next. (00:08:45)
Revealing mistake: When Andy comes to Joe's office to ask for representation his head is shaven. The transitition of artificial scalp to Andy's neck is pretty badly done, and it looks almost disgusing when he is standing in front of Joe's office after he has been declined. (00:28:30)
Continuity mistake: When Joe and his wife are about to have dinner, he takes the salad bowls into the dining room and sets them on the corner of the table. He returns to the kitchen for a second and then when he enters the dining room again the bowls are on their plates. (00:30:20)
Continuity mistake: In the library scene, before Joe approaches Andy, we see him working. There's a pile of books on the table whose backs are turned away from the camera. Joe looks over to Andy who is briefly in the picture, and when the camera cuts back to Joe the pile is turned around and the backs are visible. (00:32:05)
Continuity mistake: Joe is eating something in the library before he approaches the table where Andy is sitting. When he gets up his mouth is still full to the brim, but in the next shot a second later he greets Andy and there are no traces of food left in or around his mouth. (00:34:00)
Continuity mistake: The last shot of the library scene is taken from vertically above the table. In this shot the books and papers are arranged totally differently than before. (00:37:15 - 00:38:05)
Other mistake: In the library Joe quotes from a law book: "...the prejudice surrounding AIDS exacts a social death which precedes the physical one...". The subtitles read: "...which proceeds the physical one...", which is grammar- and otherwise wrong. (00:37:50)
Continuity mistake: In the final scene with Andrew Beckett dying in hospital, he is wearing an oxygen mask. The LHS green strap is outside the mask when the mask is removed. When put back by Joe Miller it is on the inside of the mask - this would also impact on the flow of oxygen to the patient. The next time we see Beckett the green strap appears on the outside, but no one was near to move it. What is also strange is that Miller doesn't correct the position of the strap as it looks really odd. (01:47:00)
Audio problem: When Miguel is trying to give an IV to Andrew and he says, "Let's skip the treatment tonight," Andrew's lips are not moving. That was edited in later.
Continuity mistake: Near the beginning of the movie, Andy is walking down the hall of his law firm - he has a pamphlet in his right hand and his briefcase in his left. Just before he passes a woman approaching him, he switches the pamphlet to his left hand. He then high-fives the woman; the shot changes to from behind him, and we see him letting go of her hand but the pamphlet is now in that hand.
Continuity mistake: Joe is in the drugstore and gives his card to the law student with his right hand - there is nothing else in that hand. But as he walks away, there is a blue plastic box of wipes in that hand. He had no time to pick it up or shift it from the other hand.
Continuity mistake: There is a scene where the senior partners of Wyatt, Wheeler, Hellerman, Tetlow and Brown walk down a corridor of a 76ers basketball game discussing the lawsuit brought on them by Andrew Beckett. At one point they stop in the middle of the corridor (no doors are nearby)and the camera shot focuses on one of the partners. In the next shot a man comes through a set of doors right next to the partners and walks past them, interrupting them in the middle of their conversation,but there were no doors near them in the previous shot.
Continuity mistake: In the scene where Joe returns home after the costume party to hug his little girl, you can see that the time on his wristwatch is 1:29:43 as he picks her up out of her bed to give her a hug. Roughly 36 seconds later, after he has hugged her and told her that he loves her, he lies her back down in the bed. The second hand on his watch has not moved, the time is exactly the same.
Visible crew/equipment: Boom mic visible on the upper right side of the screen when Andy's family kisses him goodbye the night he passes away.
Continuity mistake: Just before Beckett and Miller listen to Maria Callas, Miller turns his mug so that the handle is to the right of Miller from his POV. As Miller walks away at the end of that scene the mug handle is to the left of Miller's POV.
Answer: My take was that one of his firm's issues was that they didn't consider him a "victim" of the disease because, unlike his co-worker who contracted the AIDS virus from a blood transfusion, he was infected due to what they considered were his reckless and immoral life-style choices.
raywest ★