The Fugitive (1993)
Goofs
Jump to:
Audio/visual unsynchronised (4) |
Boom mic visible (1) |
Character error (12) |
Continuity (38) |
Crew or equipment visible (8) |
Errors in geography (15) |
Factual errors (17) |
Miscellaneous (5) |
Incorrectly regarded as goofs (6) |
Plot holes (3) |
Revealing mistakes (16) |
Spoilers (10)
Audio/visual unsynchronised
When the helicopter with Gerard in it lands outside the tunnel that Kimble is driving through, he says "Alright, we got him!", but his lips don't move.
In the tunnel when Gerard is yelling at Biggs asking him what he's got and telling Biggs that he's got nothing, Gerard's lips aren't moving.
When Renfro says, "Chicago PD will eat him alive," his head turns several times, but his lips don't move.
When Gerard removes Kimble's cuffs, the sound is distinctly that of handcuffs being closed.
Boom mic visible
During the emergency room scene just before Dr Kimble diagnoses the young boy's condition, the boom mic can be seen in the reflection on the medicine cabinet when one of the male nurses says "is there a doctor in here?"
Character error
It is mentioned that several other cities have an "El" (Elevated) train system. Milwaukee is incorrectly included on the list.
After Frederick Sykes returned to his apartment following Kimble's break-in and Gerard's investigation, Sykes is questioned if he's heard of the Kimble fugitive case to which he denies any knowledge of Kimble. He contradicts that statement almost immediately by admitting that the he was questioned by police only a year earlier on the Kimble case.
Guards transferring prisoners on the bus should know they're not allowed to discuss the distance and time to the destination in front of the prisoners because this gives the prisoners an idea of their present location.
The amount of money Richard has throughout the film isn't enough to purchase the items he bought, such as the hair dye, the janitor uniform, renting a spare room, among others.
In surgery, Kimble holds his needle driver incorrectly.
When the prisoners are being transported in the bus the guard says we'll be there in 40 minutes, but when the prisoner starts foaming at the mouth the guard implied they are almost at the prison.
When Sam and the other U.S. Marshals enter and look around the room Richard was renting, they touch and go through his belongings without wearing gloves, which is against police procedure.
When Gerard interviews Nichols in his office, he says that Nichols and Kimble graduated from medical school together, "class of 1973". However, the picture he is looking at on the wall reads "University of Chicago Interns '72-73", which means that Nichols and Kimble would have graduated medical school in 1972.
Both in the dam tunnel and in the laundry, Gerard fails to collect the pistols from the ground.
While Richard Kimble is dressed up as a janitor, Dr. Eastman asks him to take the boy to an observation room, opening up the hospital for liability if something happened to him in transport, as he was not an orderly.
It is highly unlikely a woman driving by herself at night would offer a ride to Richard: a complete stranger.
Dr. Anne Eastman should've called security before confronting Richard about sending the boy into surgery, not after.
Continuity
Richard Kimble has a stand-off at the end of the tunnel with U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerard. He then jumps from the tunnel on the dam's face into the water below. In the exterior shots of the dam afterwards, it is clear that there are no tunnels coming through the face of the dam (the water flows over the top.)
When Kimble is having the passport photos taken, he is wearing the green shirt which he doesn't buy until later.
When Kimble calls Walter from the pay phone, the bell on the bridge gives its last ring just after his first line, "Walter, this is Richard." When Gerard plays back the tape of the call, the bell rings 4 or 5 more times after that.
When the prison bus is rolling down the hill it comes to rest up against a tree and is parallel with the slope. As the train is approaching, a shot of the bus up ahead shows the bus sitting upright across the tracks which would make it perpendicular to the slope it just rolled down off from, not parallel.
When Richard prints his list of one-armed suspects, he crumples the paper before putting it in his pocket. In subsequent scenes, the paper is folded but uncrumpled.
When the prison transport crashes, and falls down the hill, Kimble can be seen without handcuffs, but after the bus stops, he asks the guard to uncuff him.
(Possibly only in pan and scan version) When Gerard is looking over the crime scene photos of Kimble's house taped to his window, you can see Kimble's fake hospital ID tacked on the wall, despite the ID hadn't even been made yet.
Kimble's tone of voice when he calls his lawyer doesn't match the phone-tap recording that is played back later.
During the bus wreck scene, when the bus is driving down the road and crashing, there is a double yellow line and a guard rail. A few minutes later, the same road is line with police cars and fire trucks with no line or rail.
In the opening scenes where the police are photographing Helen's body she appears to be lying on her back. The next few scenes show her being photographed lying on her side next to the phone.
Kimble hides from the hospital orderly behind the door leading to the bathroom. Kimble's hand is still visible in the mirror as the orderly walks in and out. Kimble's hands change position without him actually moving them, due to a slight cut, once the orderly leaves.
When Kimble is headed towards the parade, he pulls a shiny green hat from a trash can, and it has a flat top on it. When he joins the parade, he puts a hat on and it is a round-topped derby made of felt.
Richard's clothes remain dry after he has jumped into the dam.
The dead inmate's legs in the bus wreck change from being sideways and dirty to straight ahead and clean.
When being transported in the prison bus Kimble is fully cuffed at the waist, but when the bus is rolling down the embankment his right arm is free and over his head. When he says "unlock me" and the guard throws him the keys, he is still fully chained at the waist.
When Kimble calls his lawyer on the pay phone, initially you see an "Illinois Bell" banner on top of the payphone hut. When the scene cuts to the lawyer then back to Kimble, these banner areas are blank.
As Kimble is climbing out of the bus window his leg shackles appear to have disappeared yet in the very next scene where he is seen running from the derailed and fast approaching locomotive, he clearly has them back on.
When the bus is crashing, at one point you see the people inside at an angle, but the next shot shows the bus upright.
When Kimble and Gerard are running through the tunnels, just before Kimble jumps out of the tunnel into the dam, Kimble jumps down into a undisturbed pool of water. Seconds later, when Gerard jumps into the same pool of water, it is still undisturbed, although Kimble just jumped and ran through it.
When Kimble breaks into Sykes's apartment, the police that Kimble circumvented to get in the apartment building do not hear the break in, even though parked right outside.
When Kimble is taken away by detectives after his wife's murder, he thinks back to events which took place earlier that evening, including the moment when Charles Nichols introduced him to Alec Lentz. Later in the movie when Kimble thinks back to that moment, after breaking into Frederick Sykes's house and seeing Lentz in a photo, the words and actions of Nichols and Lentz are slightly different to what was seen earlier in the movie.
After Gerard spots Kimble at the jail, Kimble runs down two flights of stairs and detours down a hallway to an opposite flight of stairs. Kimble changes his pace to walking fast and passes by the elevators. It takes 14 seconds after this for Gerard to notice that Kimble is not on the same stairs, yet the scene shows Kimble just past the elevators when he should have been long gone.
When the chopper lands outside the tunnel, two state police cars pull up behind it. As Gerard, Renfro and Poole run into the tunnel, the cars pull up again.
Walking down hospital hallway Gerard asks "Where you at Desmondo?" His red scarf is clearly under his top coat. Seconds later while speaking with Renfro his red scarf is now over his top coat.
While Kimble is holding a gun on Gerard in the tunnel, the position of Gerard's hair matted against his forehead changes.
After the bus crashes, Kimble unlocks his hands and throws the keys onto the floor in front of Copeland. Two shots later when Copeland grabs the keys, they are lying in a different position on the floor.
Deputy Poole puts the same phone down twice after Gerard tells her to "get Sykes in here now."
After Kimble shaves in the hospital he comes across a patient coming out of an ambulance. The man tries to say "it's Kimble" before being carted away. Kimble starts to point with his right hand, and because of good editing, in the next scene it looks like the same hand but in actuality it's his other hand he is now pointing with.
When the bus guard shoots Carlson, there is a shot which shows him falling backwards, then just before it cuts, Partida begins to stand to wrestle the guard. After the shot of Carlson falling dead onto his seat, Partida again stands then wrestles the guard.
When Gerard first sees Richard on the jail stairway, Richard is at least two flights below Gerard, yet when Gerard begins chasing him in the next shot there is only one flight between them.
Spot of blood on the sheets of the boy whose life Kimble saves in the hospital.
Altitude of the police chopper when Gerard says "We've got him now" while landing outside of the tunnel.
Just after Kimble fights with Sykes on the EL train, he takes both Sykes's and the transit cops guns. Sykes's gun gets placed into his right pocket, and the transit cops into his left. However when Kimble dumps the guns into the mailbox, Sykes's is in his left and the cops is in the right.
When Dr. Charles Nichols gets into his car and makes a right turn from "North Bank Club", there's a car and the traffic light is red. From the interior view, the car is gone and the traffic light changes from yellow to red.
Kimble's telephone call to Gerard from Syke's apartment is traced to 256 South St. Lawrence, but the police later enter a building with the address number of 11217.
Outside the Hilton a valet tells Gerard, the witnesses saw a man with two guns, but Kimble does not wear any guns. He dropped them in a mailbox at the station after leaving the train.
The clock on the building during the parade scene.
Kimble's black plastic bag when he rents the apartment from the Polish woman.
Crew or equipment visible
During the chase in the dam tunnel the dolly track is visible in the water.
As the train wreckage comes to rest Kimble is hiding under a
small trestle bridge. A shot up at the wreckage shows a crew member's face above the trestle. This error was corrected for the 2001 DVD release of the film, after Andrew Davis noticed it. The crew member reappears on the Blu-Ray disc version of the film.
Studio lights visible as the train approaches the bus.
Camera truck visible at the bottom of the screen as Kimble enters the tunnel.
Visible in reflection on subway windows.
Moving shadows, possible that of a crew members hand, can be seen on the elevator interior wall behind Dr. Kimble as he exits the elevator on the 5th floor laundry room (after the fall from the skylight).
In the hospital scene where Kimble is leaving after getting the information about all one armed people, the reflection of a microphone can be seen in a cabinet's glass.
During the altercation between Kimble and Sykes on the train, the camera pans to an outside view through a window. Barely visible at the base of the window is either a crew member or bystander crouching down, as if in the way by mistake. It happens very quickly, but is noticeable.
Errors in geography
During the ambulance chase, two police cars turn by a sign pointing to Murphy, North Carolina.
On the sheet of paper with the list of the five possible one-armed men, the last name and address has an address in Napierville, which is actually spelled "Naperville".
There are no dams like the one Kimble jumps off of in Illinois. It's way too high and the gorge way too deep. Illinois is basically flat with little hills in S. Illinois.
Although the movie is set in Chicago, many of the scenes show large hills and mountains. Illinois is flat through most of the state, but in the begining scenes in Southern Illinois, the area is rugged and hilly. (The scenes were filmed in North Carolina).
Kimble and Nichols leave the Grand Ballroom at the Hilton Towers and go next door to the presidential suite. The ballroom is on the second floor of the Hilton, while the presidential suite is on the top floor. Next door to the Grand Ballroom is the International Ballroom.
During the scene in Whiting, there is an Illinois State Trooper in front of the house. Whiting is in Indiana, out of the jurisdiction of the Illinois Troopers.
The Marshals tracked Dr. Kimble from the phone call at the one armed man's house and said that his address was 10256 S. Saint Lawrence. The Marshals went in and come out of 11217 S. Saint Lawrence. Also, the house that the one armed man went into was on the other side of the street.
When they are doing the bust in Whiting, you can hear the whistle of a CTA El train in the background. There are no El lines in Whiting.
Though the movie is set somewhere in Chicago's Near North side, we see Kimble walking by the University of Chicago's science library (the John Crerar Library), which is located on the South Side.
While headed on the train with the one armed man, "his stop" and a variety of lines include a destination as the El's Balbo Stop. Though Balbo is an avenue which travels in and around the famous Grant Park, it is not a stop nor has ever been one on the train system.(In fact, most of it would have been initially underwater)
When Kimble boards the "Kimball" Brown Line train, he ends up headed south out of the loop on a Green Line train (the Aerial shot shows the south Loop exit S-Curve). The Brown Line only heads north out of the Loop.
There is in fact no Balboa "L" stop, though the Chicago Hilton is at Balboa. However, the police are seen entering a building at 203 N Lasalle, which is at LaSalle and Lake, far from the Hilton.
The dam scene is by Tapoco, NC is by the dam at the entrance of the famous 'Tail Of The Dragon' road to Tennessee.
Richard Kimble's escape on foot from Menard prison in southern Illinois toward Chicago shows Richard Kimble running south on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River (downstream direction) - this would be going south toward Memphis instead of north (upstream) toward Chicago.
The dam is named as the Barkley Dam. However, this dam is in southern Kentucky, not Illinois.
Factual errors
When Kimble enters the elevator in the hotel on the way up to see Charles, he pushes the top middle button, but the top right button lights up instead.
When the technician is dusting for fingerprints in the apartment, he mentions that Kimble's prints are all over the apartment and concentrated on the desk. How can he visually determine which prints are Kimble's simply by dusting for them? A definitive match would have to be done in a lab or by computer today using known prints for comparison.
No hospital in the modern world would allow orderlies or anyone to wear roller skates due to the obvious safety hazards.
Gerard states that he's taking over the local sheriff's investigation and he's from the United States Marshals Office, 5th District Northern Illinois. It's just the Northern District of Illinois. The US Marshalls do not assign numbers to their districts. Some districts have numbered divisions within them, but not northern Illinois.
A television news montage is seen in an electronics store containing video of Kimble from earlier in the film and includes a scene from Kimble's sentencing hearing. Since cameras are not permitted in Illinois courtrooms, the only "image" from any of the court proceedings available to the media would have been those created by courtroom sketch artists.
Illinois State Police troopers wear six-pointed star badges, not seven-pointed stars as shown.
When Dr Nichols gives Dr Kimble some cash he is aiding and abetting a wanted fugitive and when he told this to the marshals he would have been arrested on the spot.
When Dr Nichols and Kimble exit the elevator in the laundry room, the elevator is "emergency stopped". The doors would not open automatically, nor would they re-open with Kimble blocking a closure with this arm. They would have to be unlocked and opened manually.
the investigators mention that Dr.Kimble's fingerprints were on the pistol that was used during the assault on his wife, but they did not examine his hands for gunpowder residues.
The only way to explain the lack of gunpowder residues on his hands would be that the invader had been wearing gloves, but then again the doctor's fingerprints would hold no evidence at all.
Dialogue in the movie itself states that Kimble has brown eyes. However, Harrison Ford's eyes are hazel.
When the ambulance Kimble stole is seen, as Gerard gets on the helicopter, the engine in just starting up yet the helicopter is in the air just a few seconds later, way too fast to allow it complete the startup process and start flying.
When the fire trucks show up to allow Sykes to escape the engine company has no fire hose on it.
When Kimball looks at the boy's chest X-ray in the hallway, he holds it backwards. The shadow of the heart should bulge outward to the left of the patient, the right on the X-ray.
There is no way a person could jump off the Cheoah Dam (where the movie was filmed) and survive without injury as Harrison Ford's character does. The dam is approximately 225' high and experts estimate that a human can survive a fall/jump into water of about 150'-200'. Over 250' the survival rate is about 5%. Taken together, if by some miracle he survived, he would have absolutely had severe injuries. There is no way he walked away without a scratch or bruise.
In a closeup of a Chicago Sun-Times paper dated THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 1993 the main article highlights "Kimble in Chicago: Fugitive Escapes Downtown Pursuit". To the left of the article is a blurb titled "Fan Hits $1 Million Bull's-Eye" about the Bulls fan Don Calhoun that hit a half court shot for $1 Million. The photo and date indicate this happened on March 17, 1993 when in fact Don hit the shot on April 14th, 1993.
The Marshals tap Kimble's attorney's phone in order to track Kimble's whereabouts. However, because of attorney/client privilege, everything between attorneys and clients is completely confidential. The Marshals would not have been able to legally tap the attorney's phone without consent, something that no attorney would ever consent to.
Gerard states that he's taking over the local sheriff's investigation and he's from the United States Marshals Office, 5th District Northern Illinois. All of Illinois as well as Indiana and Wisconsin are in the 7th Circuit.
Miscellaneous
After Kimble knocks Nichols unconscious and then surrenders to Gerard, Gerard uses his foot to slide the pistol away from Nichols's hand. However, as the scene is ending, Gerard clearly begins to walk away, without picking up the pistol. Thus, it would still be within Nichols's reach if he regained consciousness.
After the bus has rolled over and over many times the passengers are still in their seats.
Kimble is able to get into Sykes' apartment by kicking through a window with boards across it. Since Sykes was head of security at Devlin McGregor he certainly would have much better security for his own apartment.
As Kimble is walking with a group of others in the parade he removes his coat supposedly to change his appearance from Gerard who is coming from behind looking for him. When he exits the group and goes off to the side he is no longer carrying it which means he would have had to drop it on the ground as there was no place to hide it in the middle of the street where he was marching along with the others. However when Gerard gets up to the back of that group there is no coat on the ground.
In the penultimate scene of the film, Dr. Kimble and Dr. Nichols exit the elevator on the 5th floor, entering the Laundry. However, the Laundry in the actual Chicago Hilton and Towers is located on the 7th floor.
Incorrectly regarded as goofs
When Kimble is fleeing the U.S. Marshals in the jail, he is shot at (but not hit as he was shielded by bulletproof glass). Kimble did not pose an immediate threat to them at the time, which would normally make shooting at him illegal. However, law enforcement officers do have the authority to use deadly force on a fleeing suspect if they reasonably believe the suspect's escape would create a grave danger to the community. Considering that the Marshals, at the time, believed Kimble to have viciously murdered his wife, it would be reasonable for them to think he could do such a thing again should he escape them.
When Kimble is making the call, the PA announcement for an El train is overheard. While PA announcements are now made only inside the train, in the early 1990s they were clearly audible in the station (maybe more so than in the train), and even in the nearby streets.
In the laundry room at Hilton Towers, a cart is clearly marked "Palmer House", a different Chicago hotel. However, since they are both Hiltons and near each other, it's not unlikely they would share some back-room equipment.
Kimble dyes his hair black in one scene and then in another scene his hair is the same old color from the beginning of the movie. However, it's entirely possible (even likely) that Richard purchased the kind of temporary dye that washes out within a few weeks. Since the scenes take place over the course of several months, it's not at all unlikely that the scene in which Richard's hair is again its natural color occurs a few weeks after the last scene in which he has black hair.
After the policeman is shot on the train, it's said that the police blame Richard and will be out for blood, even though there were witnesses in the car who would testify that it was Sykes who shot the officer. However, this all unfolded very quickly, and the truth had not yet come out. It would have taken time for officers to take witness statements and for word to spread that Sykes was the shooter, and not Kimble.
When Kimble is initially questioned by CPD detectives after the murder of his wife, he challenges them by saying, "You find this man." Later in the movie, flashbacks incorrectly quote him as saying, "You find that man." However, this is to show different perspectives of the same scene.
Plot holes
When the guard from the bus is interviewed he claims to have somehow thrown his partner out of the bus before the train hit. But the other guard has not yet been discovered alive.
When Kimble is at the hospital helping the little boy, Samuel Gerard and his men are in his rented room, having discovered where he's living now. However, the following scene shows Kimble at the Richard Daley Plaza the next day. It's never explained why Kimble didn't return to his room from the hospital that night, or where he spent the night, since he'd obviously have been caught if he did return.
When Kimble and Nichols fight just after the speech is interrupted, Kimble tosses him out a door onto an exterior balcony. The door uses ordinary fire panic hardware, push to open. The door should swing inward. That kind of door is always used to move toward a fire EXIT. A balcony is not an exit, unless the Fire Marshall expects you to jump off.
Revealing mistakes
While Samuel Gerard is searching for Richard Kimble among the people at the St. Patrick's Day parade, you can clearly hear a person shout out, "Hey Tommy! Woo!", likely directed at actor Tommy Lee Jones.
Repeated footage: When Richard Kimble is running from the train wreck in the woods, before he reaches the hospital.
During the ambulance chase, when they drive past the dam, the background shot is a still image.
When Kimble is escaping in the ambulance, the camera pans to the right where we see the dam, but the water coming out of it isn't moving.
In the opening scene, as the ambulance drives up, a placard reading "FILM-2" is clearly visible on the ambulance light bar.
When Kimble jumps from the dam, the wide shot is clearly using a dummy.
Obvious dummies in the bus when it flips over.
When the elevator with Kimble and Nichols reaches the laundry room, the hole in the roof shows the elevator cables. The image is decidedly grainy. It's obviously a pre-recorded image, and was then composited onto the scene at a later date.
When Gerard and Cosmo are riding in the car, and eventually wind up at the Hilton, the car's rear view mirror has been removed from the windshield.
When Gerard lands in the helicopter to block the end of the tunnel, the person to get out of the helicopter is Jones's stand-in. Seconds later when the camera returns to him, it is Tommy Lee Jones.
When Kimble crawls out from under the bridge after being chased by the derailed locomotive 536, the 536 has no traction motors on its wheels. Without traction motors a locomotive cannot move on its own, let alone pull a train. Obviously the derailing train was being pushed from the rear end.
During the scene on the train, when Kimble kicks Sykes backwards, you can clearly see Sykes stretching his right hand. This hand is shown to be prosthetic and the hand immobile.
While escorting a young boy to an observation room, Dr. Kimble holds up an x-ray of his chest. You can see by the location of the heart that he is holding the x-ray backwards.
In the scene on the laundry room floor when Kimble sticks his arm through the closing elevator door to open it up again so he can get out, if you look at the door, you'll see blood smears, possibly from other takes of the same scene since Kimble has blood on that hand.
Just after Kimble escapes during the parade, his hair is still dyed black. In the very next scene with Kimble, his hair is back to its natural color, brown with scattered gray hair. This implies that a lot of time has past but then the US Marshals are seen reading the newspaper article about Kimble at the parade, indicating it's only been a few days.
In spite of Jeroen Krabbé playing a presumably American character, his ever so slight Dutch accent is noticeable, especially if you know what to listen for (the tendency, for example, to almost say "de" instead of "the").
Spoilers
Audio/visual unsynchronised
At the end of the movie, when Gerard brings Kimble out of the hotel, there is a large crowd of reporters asking questions. They follow them right to the car and when Kimble gets in the car, it's clear that the window is open, however, when Gerard and Kimble are in the car, you can no longer hear the sound of the crowd just outside of it.
When Cosmo Renfro is being taken out of the hotel on a stretcher, he says "Tell Sam Gerard I'm going home now. I'm taking my vacation." His mouth is not moving.
Character error
In a newspaper article regarding the St. Patrick's Day parade, a sub-headline says "Fugitive Escapes Downtown Pursuit" but the text of the article says "Kimble was apprehended after an extensive chase by Police and several bystanders," even though Kimble escaped.
When the doctor gets hold of the deputy's gun in the tunnels near the dam, the deputy shows an awareness than the doctor is pointing a gun before he can see him. There is also no sound to let him know this.
Continuity
When Kimble is confronting Nichols in the Hilton ballroom, the rear shot shows Kimble extends his arm to the right motioning to Nichols to leave the room to the right. When the shot then goes to the front, his arm is still at his side.
After Gerard shoots Copeland twice and kills him, the slide on Gerard's Glock is completely pulled back (as if he's emptied his magazine.) In the next scene, the slide is in the regular position.
Crew or equipment visible
When Kimble surrenders at the end of the movie, he is turned away from the camera. When he turns to follow Gerard, a hearing aid is visible in Kimble's right ear.
Errors in geography
At the end of the movie, when Richard is being taken out of the Hilton towers, the trees across the street from the hotel are in full bloom. However, there are no green leaves on the trees in mid-March in Chicago.
Revealing mistakes
When Kimble and Nichols are fighting past the ballroom, Nichols slams Kimble with a quality hardwood chair that shatters on impact. Chairs of this construction would never disintegrate so easily after impact with a human body.
When Dr Charles Nichols is hit from behind by Kimble in the laundry at the end of the movie, the gun in Nichols's hand is resting on his other hand, and he is obviously unconscious. However, when Sam Gerard goes to disarm him, the gun is lying flat on the ground.
