Goofs
Continuity
Eric steams open an envelope, leaves it on kitchen counter, Juliana comes home, puts two bags of groceries on envelope. Eric picks up envelope that has magically appeared on coffee tableShare this
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Anachronisms (7) |
Character error (3) |
Continuity (4) |
Crew or equipment visible (1) |
Errors in geography (1) |
Factual errors (3) |
Incorrectly regarded as goofs (2) |
Revealing mistakes (3)
Anachronisms
In a number of scenes, computers were displayed clearly showing Microsoft 'Windows XP' screens. Windows XP did not appear until October 25, 2001, well after the time the movie was set.
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Post 2001/2002 cars are shown (e.g. 2003 or newer Honda Accord seen near beginning of movie).
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The mail with the video tape is sent to 5311 Bonn, Germany. The German zip code system was changed from 4 to 5 characters in 1993.
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Signs on one of the Washington, D.C., metro stations used in the movie read "Archives-Navy Memorial-Penn Quarter," but the words "Penn Quarter" were not added to the station name until January 2004, three years after the movie takes place.
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Seen in the film is a Blue Mercedes-Benz ML Sport Utility Vehicle, not built until Spring 2005.
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When Hanssen's car is thoroughly inspected his trunk contains several assault rifles including German Heckler & Koch G36s. The film takes place early in 2001. HK did not announce the release of the G36 until Spring 2001 and did not begin releasing free LEO (Law Enforcement Only) samples until 2002. It is also unlikely that Hanssen would even be issued such as gun as he did not test new firearms for the FBI.
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The two Soviet KGB Agents are shown getting out of a car with a Russian flag on the front. The Russian flag was not adopted until 1991. The agents were executed under the old Soviet Union.
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Character error
After the Hanssons take the O'Neills to Mass, Bonnie Hansson asks Juliana if "...she (Juliana) enjoyed the service?" As a strident Catholic, Bonnie would have said, "Did you enjoy the Mass?" Protestants have a "service"; Catholics have a "Mass".
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Eric and Robert enter a church and Eric makes the sign of the cross incorrectly. Since much of the plot involves Eric's and Robert's Catholicism, it would have been an error that would have made Robert suspicious.
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When Hanssen and O'Neill first enter the chapel together, Jesuit-trained O'Neill performs the sign of the cross incorrectly, touching forehead-shoulder-shoulder-sternum, rather than forehead-sternum-shoulder-shoulder.
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Continuity
The Dell laptop and LCD monitor that Robert has in his office, when he shows Eric a movie clip with Catherine Zeta-Jones, was manufactured after 2001. While driving on Wilson Boulevard, the license plate on the back of the black SUV Eric is driving is a Virginia plate. In the traffic jam in the next scene, the license plate on the front of the SUV is clearly a Washington DC plate.
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When Kate is explaining the details of his assignment, she has the pager sitting on the table. When she tells him about it, she is holding it. The camera switches to Eric's perspective and she brings her hands up from under the table to slide the pager over to him.
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When Hanson and O'Neill are driving on the highway, the Kennedy Center For The Performing Arts appears almost directly to the left of O'Neill. The screen flashes to Hanson, then when it goes back to O'Neill, the Kennedy Center is farther away, as if they are just now driving toward it.
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When the agents are disassembling Hanssen's Taurus, they are seen removing an alloy wheel from the driver's side front. However, the vehicle is a Taurus GL which had steel wheels with plastic covers seen in the rest of the film.
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Crew or equipment visible
When Kate Burroughs and Eric O'Neill are talking near the end of the movie inside Hanssen's office. You can see a crew member making slight movements in a picture frame's reflection on the bookshelf.
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Errors in geography
The producers thank "Fairway County, VA" for the use of the park where the drop is made. The park is in Fairfax County, VA.
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Factual errors
When Eric O'Neill removes Robert Hanssen's Palm Pilot from his briefcase you can clearly see the Palm Pilot Model is a Palm III, which doesn't use an SD memory chip, which is lying next to it. This Palm has a 8 meg of internal memory only - no External memory card.
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Security. Typical government safes containing classified information have the combination lock on the top drawer (not the second drawer down).
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When Hanssen and O'Neill are cleared in at the DIA, the driveway barriers are backward. Typically, the barrier lip that raises and lowers faces the outside world, not the protected area.
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Incorrectly regarded as goofs
In the long shot of the scene of a traffic jam on Memorial Bridge, no-one is in the driver's seat of any of the cars. This is probably because those cars are parked, not stuck in traffic. On that part of Rock Creek Pkwy in DC, there is parking on both sides of the street. There is only one lane of traffic in each direction, with room for cars on both curbs for parallel parking.
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When Eric looks at the Internet history on Hanssen's computer, one of the URLs displayed uses incorrect syntax: "www.church/democrats/clinton.com". The slash character is invalid in a top level domain name (www.imdb.com for example). However, this simply means the URL was incorrectly entered, which is also maintained in Internet Explorer history.
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Revealing mistakes
In the night street scene in front of Eric's apartment, set in DC, there is a Canadian "Do Not Enter" sign clearly visible in several shots.
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The metro station labeled as "Archives-Navy Memorial-Penn Quarter" that Kate exits when meeting with Eric is actually the Federal Triangle metro stop. The adjacent Post Office Pavilion is visible in the background.
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When Robert Hanssen is making his final "dead drop" of government secrets in a metro DC park in February, the sound track includes the distinct sound of robins singing. Robins do not migrate into the DC area until many weeks later.
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