Factual error: In one scene, focused on a period wood-staked pickup truck parked on the street, you can see clearly a modern Jeep Grand Cherokee parked on the other side of the street.
Public Enemies (2009)
Directed by: Michael Mann
Starring: Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, David Wenham, James Russo
Continuity mistake: When Dillinger is looking at his watch just before going to the movies, the time is 6:02. Close-up of his mum's photo, and the time is now something like 6:25.
Continuity mistake: During the scene of the fight between Dillinger, and Melvin Purvis and the Little Bohemia Lodge, it shows Purvis shooting from the side and he has a straight magazine in his Thompson, but when the shot faces him he has a drum magazine in his Thompson, but when it goes back to his side to reload, he again has the straight magazine.
Trivia: One of the bank scenes were shot at the Little Bohemia Lodge, where there was an actual shoot-out between John Dillinger and the FBI in 1934.
Trivia: Baby Face Nelson did not die as was depicted in the movie; he actually escaped from Little Bohemia and outlived Dillinger by four months (Dillinger died in July, and Nelson the following November). Nelson received mortal wounds in a shootout with two FBI Agents (who died as well). Nelson died that night after escaping with his wife and associates; his body was left in a ditch and discovered by the authorities the next day.
Trivia: In the trailer - and the film, for that matter - Johny Depp's character John Dillinger tells a bank employee, 'We're here for the bank's money, not yours. Put that away.' Robert DeNiro's character Neil McCauley in Heat similarly goes, 'We're here for the bank's money, not yours. Your money's insured by the federal government, you won't lose a dime.' Both Heat and Public Enemies were written (or co-written in the case of Public Enemies) and directed by Michael Mann.
John Dillinger: They ain't tough enough, smart enough or fast enough. I can hit any bank I want, any time. They got to be at every bank, all the time.
John Dillinger: I like baseball, movies, good clothes, fast cars, whiskey... And you. What else you need to know?
Melvin Purvis: The only way you're walking out of this jail cell is when we take you out to execute you.
John Dillinger: Well, we'll see about that.
Question: I must have missed something, but when Dillinger and his accomplice (can't remember his name) are escaping from the lodge, they both hitch a ride with Baby Face Nelson on the dirt road. Later Purvis and his men run Nelson's car off the road and kill him and another guy. Then we see Dillinger and his wounded accomplice with a car in town getting medical supplies. How's that possible?
Question: How was John able to communicate to Billie where he'd pick her up when she left the apartment dressed like a man? Their phone was tapped so he had to tell her somehow. Also, in the beginning, who was the woman with the little boy who asked John to take them with?
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Chosen answer: Baby Face Nelson doesn't pick up Dillinger. He picks up the characters played by Stephen Dorf and another associate. Dillinger and Hamilton escape through the woods and steal a car from an older man they come across in the forest. After the shootout, Dillinger and Nelson are never in the car together.