johnrosa

Visible crew/equipment: When Alan is struggling with Barbara on the drawbridge, the shadow of a camera/operator is on Alan's back as they get near the car. (01:30:30)

johnrosa

Factual error: When the sedan is struck by the train, it launches into the air and explodes, but doesn't sustain severe impact damage. The car rolls over in midair and it is nearly straight - not heavily bent or crushed as the entire left side should have been. Even a slow moving train heavily batters the passenger vehicle it hits. (00:17:05)

johnrosa

Continuity mistake: Murtagh states he was 7 floors up, but the room number (612) suggests it's a 6th floor room. When he looks down to see the three men falling, his vantage point is well above 7 floors up. (00:30:20)

johnrosa

Other mistake: Roger intercepts Riggs and blocks the path of his truck. After agreeing to a plan, we hear Riggs driving off. But his original path is still blocked and we don't see him pass behind Murtagh, so he must have reversed direction (which seems unlikely since he's continuing his drive to the same destination). But for his truck to have headed the other way, he'd have to turn it around first, but we hear it simply drive off. (01:35:40)

johnrosa

Continuity mistake: During the armored car chase, the bad guys' truck plate number ends "T2" while Delores' plate ends "E4". After Riggs tosses one bad guy out the back and decides to climb onto the outside, the trucks have switched sides with Delores curbside and the bad guy on her left. But two quick close-ups of the trucks bumping together shows Delores' truck is again on the left. (00:13:00)

johnrosa

Revealing mistake: When the small car is launched into the air, the underside is plainly visible, showing no normal working parts like a suspension or drivetrain. It has a flat pan bottom with a square-tube support structure to make it very light for its flight and to retain it shape. (Director's Cut.) (00:42:40)

johnrosa

Plot hole: Riggs and Murtagh send the car flying out of the container, pushing the money out as it goes. Ignoring that the car couldn't possibly force the sealed container doors open, even without having the obstacle of pallets loaded with money in the way, the car actually explodes in mid air for no reason. (Director's Cut.) (01:44:35)

johnrosa

Continuity mistake: As Murtagh's car pulls up behind the small pickup, a man is reaching into the bed of the truck from the left side of the truck. But as soon as Riggs steps out of the car, the man is instantly behind his truck. (00:37:25)

johnrosa

Plot hole: When the armored guy is propelled under the tanker trailer, his backpack explodes. That blast can not have been large enough to lift the entire trailer through the air. The trailer never explodes itself, and if it did, the tank itself would have torn apart and the frame beneath would have stayed on the ground, pushed down by that blast above. (Oh, and there's no such "safety feature" that is intended to launch a trailer in the air in case of an accident.) (00:05:00)

johnrosa

Factual error: When the guys arrive at the stilted home, a 'rollback' wrecker (flatbed tow truck) is shown with its bed raised and tilted to load car. At the higher, forward end of the bed is a massive 'guard' (shaped somewhat like a rollbar) that the warning lightbar is mounted on. This guard is specifically there to prevent a carried vehicle from being able to move forward past the front end of the bed. It is not possible for the car that is struck to go over the cab of the truck as it did, as this guard raises with the bed, and is reinforced to hold the car back, not breakaway in the flimsy fashion that it does. (00:37:20 - 00:42:35)

johnrosa

Trivia: When Delores calls herself the "Road Warrior", it's a fairly naked reference to Mel's prior role in the three Mad Max films. (00:11:15)

johnrosa

Continuity mistake: When Riggs is standing in the schoolyard during the sniper scene, he is standing on a large rubber safety mat near the monkey bars. But the close-up of his feet shows he is standing on bare concrete (Director's Cut). (00:13:10)

johnrosa

Continuity mistake: (Director's Cut) As Murtagh later states (and Riggs does not correct him), Riggs' 9mm pistol has a 15 round clip and holds one more 'in the pipe' (barrel), yet when he took out the sniper earlier, he fired at least 19 rounds in a single, rapid sequence. (00:13:30 - 00:27:45)

johnrosa

Factual error: Nail guns like the one used as a weapon here can not be fired unless the tip is pressed against a hard surface. It will not fire a nail at someone across any space. The first guy is killed by pressing the gun to his forehead, but the second is hit from several inches away (evidenced by the length of each nail still sticking out of the guy instead of them being fully into his body with only the nail heads showing.

johnrosa

Continuity mistake: When coked-up Amanda first looks down from the balcony, we see the ground from her vantage point. Were she to jump from this location, she would land on the huge awning below (the curved dark area). If she put real effort into jumping forward to clear the awning (and she didn't), she'd land just to the right of the lighted sidewalk, onto the grass. And if she were an olympic long-jumper and not high on cocaine, she might have landed on the red or black car parked at the curb. Under no circumstances could she have landed on the gray car, well to her left - yet she does. (00:03:05)

johnrosa

Revealing mistake: A short shot from inside the bus looking forward at the moment of impact shows a wall of water fires up onto the windshield. This 'water barrel' technique is used to lessen damage and injury on many public roadways, and is used here to save the bus for use in another take - the one when it actually does hit the car a split-second of movie-time later. (01:42:15)

johnrosa

Continuity mistake: As Riggs exits the car, he takes the cigarette out of his mouth. The camera angle chages to show him standing outside the car, handling his pistol, and the cigarette is back in his mouth, with no time to put it there and the audio indicates the shots are consecutive time. (00:45:20)

johnrosa

Revealing mistake: When the windshield is shot up, Riggs knocks the glass off the car. But interior shots that follow show Riggs' tall, fluffy hair isn't moving at all in the high-speed air rushing into the car. (00:02:15)

johnrosa

Continuity mistake: Just as his wife is about to smack Murtaugh's butt at the oven, a small ladder is at the right, angled to face Murtaugh's position. As the shot changes to get a bit closer, the ladder is suddenly more parallel with the cabinetry. (00:50:25)

johnrosa

Continuity mistake: As Murtaugh is interviewing Hunsacker, Riggs waits outside on the grass. At one point, the area Riggs is standing still in changes from full sun to full shadow in seconds. (01:13:15)

johnrosa