Goofs for
The Italian Job (2003) More at IMDbPro »

• Continuity: When the crew meet to get phones and IDs, Lyle rides up shakily on a yellow motorcycle and drops it to the right of the red Mini, with the front wheel pointed roughly at the right side of the Mini. In the shot showing them departing, however, the motorcycle is shown on the foreground to the left of the red Mini, and it is pointing away from the Mini.
  
  
• Continuity: When Lyle checks the armored trucks for their ride level, the number of the truck is clearly seen by the rear wheel. However when the truck drives past the minis later and there is no number in the corner. The number is clearly added on by a computer because the clarity is completely different.
  
  
• Continuity: After Stella has successfully opened the safe in the metro, the drill that was stuck in the safe's door after the glass cracked disappears.
  
  

• Crew or equipment visible: While Stella is driving to the train, you can briefly see the reflection on the driver side window of a cameraman sitting in the passenger seat.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Skinny Pete says "Mother Freakin' Ukranians" his mouth clearly says "Fucking".
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Steve is being dragged away by the Ukranians you hear him plead "Come on Charlie!" but his mouth never moves.
  
  
• Continuity: The amount of blood in Steve's mouth after Charlie decks him in the café changes inconsistently between shots.
  
  
• Continuity: When the team is in the warehouse and discovers Steve is fleeing with the gold, the basketball that Charlie and Lyle are playing with jumps around improbably between shots.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: In the chase scene, the motorcycles used are BMWs with boxer engines (flat twins), but the sound effects are from inline fours.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: The motorcycles used in the chase scene are BMWR1100RT's, which are 2 cylinder motorcycles. The engine noise heard from them is that of a 4 cylinder sport bike, a very different sound than a 2 cylinder sport-touring bike.
  
  
• Factual errors: When Napster and Handsome Rob are watching the Netcom employees in the cark park, Napster is using a camera. The lens is retracted meaning that the camera is either switched off, or in image playback mode, not a mode where auto-focus could be used or pictures taken.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When Charlie is being chased by Steve in the helicopter, he pulls a 180 when he sees the truck blocking his way. When he starts up again, and the shot shifts to ground level, you can see the reflection of the right front wheel in the safety shield that's in front of the door camera.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Because the letters of the "Hollywood" sign are on a hill with an uneven, undulating surface, they're not all in the same plane. This means that from some angles it really does look as though the sign says "OHLLYWODO".
  
  
• Continuity: Stella's hair when she and Charlie are up in her bedroom talking about Steve and her father.
  
  
• Continuity: When the Cadillac pulls up in the scrap yard to pick up Mashkov, at first it is a black Cadillac Seville. There is a cutaway to some equipment in the yard, and in the next shot of the front of the car pulling up next to Mashkov, it is now a Cadillac CTS.
  
  
• Continuity: After Stella parallel parks her red vintage Mini Cooper while driving at full speed, we see through her windshield the vehicle in front of her 5 to 10 feet away. After she gets out her car is shown to be parked only 2 or 3 feet away. The space shown when she is driving is clearly much bigger than in the side shot. When driving like that you would not be able to park a car that tightly.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When the van carrying the gold falls down in the underground a chain "helping" it to fall is visible next the front wheels.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: Obvious stunt double when Charlie hits Steve.
  
  
• Factual errors: When Charlie is confronted by Steve in the helicopter under the freeway, the buses in the background are MUNI buses. The movie takes place in Los Angeles; MUNI is the public transportation in San Francisco.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When the Mini's exit the pipe during the escape from the underground at least one of the cars lands with it's nose hitting the ground first while it's tail is high in the air. Due to the weight of the gold in the back of the car this would be physically impossible.
  
  
• Continuity: When the armoured truck comes crashing into the tunnel, the minis get covered in dust. By the time they drive off they are nice and shiny again.
  
  
• Continuity: When Charlie is shooting hoops in the garage and is going over the heist on Steve, he is holding the basketball, but in the very next shot Lyle passes him the ball that Charlie should be holding.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: It is said in the movie that the safe carried by the truck near the end of the film has a lock with a glass plate, and if it's not drilled right the glass could break. The glass didn't break when the car with safe inside hit the ground after traveling about eight meters down.
  
  
• Continuity: The shots of truck 128 during the traffic jam are not consistent.
  
  
• Continuity: In first few shots of the traffic jam scene there is a shot of the armored truck from across the street and you can see the wheels of a car spinning (center frame), but the car isn't going anywhere.
  
  
• Continuity: While Stella is parallel parking, as the motorcycle pulls away from the spot, there are several people standing on the sidewalk, right by the street. As Stella parks and exits her car, they are gone.
  
  
• Continuity: When the Minis are about to cut in front of the train there is a railing at the end of the platform (that would make it impossible for them to pull around). However in the next shot, the railing is gone and the position of the train has changed. The railing is also shown in th video footage with Lyle.
  
  
• Continuity: Positioning and damage to the Minis changes in the street chase after the tunnel scene
  
  
• Factual errors: Bullets do not travel at full speed through water. In reality, all bullets slow rapidly as soon as they hit the water, contrary to what is seen when Steve shoots into the lake. Not only do bullets slow down quickly when fired into water, high powered bullets from weapons like the assault rife Steve is using actually shred within inches of the surface of the water and then simply settle to the bottom of (in this case) the lake. Oddly enough, high-powered bullets have less penetration through water than lower-powered ones (a bullet's power is determined by the cartridge charge).
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When they are in Italy at the beginning and trying to determine where to blow the safe out, Napster says 10 feet 8 inches and the laser machine says 10.8 which would actually be 10 feet 9.6 inches.
  
  
• Factual errors: At the beginning of the movie when they are in Italy stealing the safe, Lyle tells Steve that the wall is 14 feet 8 inches away. On the device, it reads 14.8, assuming 14.8 feet or 14 feet 9.6 inches. 14 feet 8 inches would be 14.667 on the device.
  
  
• Factual errors: When the Minis exit the tunnel while getting chased by motorcycles, you can clearly see that the Minis get airborne before they reach the lip of the tunnel.
  
  
• Continuity: The license plate changes on the blue Mini between scenes. Mostly the plate is 2SAQ321, but when the helicopter is chasing, the plate reads 2SBI658 when they pass in front of the hotel.
  
  
• Factual errors: Its stated by Mashkov that "he will be on Train 59 to New Orleans." Train 59 is called "The City of New Orleans" and leaves directly from Chicago to New Orleans. It doesn't go anywhere near Los Angeles. The only train from LA to New Orleans is Train #2, the Sunset Limited.
  
  
• Continuity: When the three Minis jump in front of the underground train you can see the last Mini hit the front of the train with the rear bumper and the whole lot goes through the tunnel. But in the next shot Napster stops the train and it stops just in front of the tunnel to block it.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When the Minis jump out of the tunnel, they all land on the front bumper, but in the next shot in the park, all the cars are undamaged.
  
  
• Continuity: When the team is test driving the Minis after the mods, the extra headlights on the red car (Stella's car) switches on and off between shots
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: There is no visible breath seen from the cold weather during any scenes in the Alps.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When the Minis are being chased by the helicopter, at one point they drive across a park. On the grass, you can clearly see tire tracks from previous takes.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: During many of the Mini interior shots the big speedometer in the center of the dashboard shows two red lights on. One of these shows the handbrake is on whilst they are driving.
  
  
• Factual errors: In the alps, the border-sign says 'AUSTRIA'. In Europe, the country's border-sign is always spelled in the language of that specific country at that location. At the Italian-Austrian border that would be German, not English. So the sign would say: 'Republik Österreich'
  
  
• Factual errors: When the Mini Coopers exit the tunnel with the gold in their boots, they "jump" out of the tunnel and soar a little. This would not be possible due to the weight of the gold in the back.
  
  
• Factual errors: The dam the boys are standing on after stealing the gold (for the first time) is called the fedaia-dam and is located in the middle of a great ski area also known as 'the sella ronda'. You can see the lake and the dam when you are standing on the ski slopes. Considering there is a lot of snow on the mountains it's probably ski-ing season. So they couldn't have had a big gun shot fight and just take their time with getting out of there, a lot of people would have been witnesses!
  
  
• Factual errors: When the helicopter pilot say's they're moving out he gives the flight identifier code as 3KB - three kilo bravo. This code is normally the last three digits of the aircraft registration but their helicopter has the registration N723KP.
  
  
• Continuity: When the mini's are being chased in the pipe, one of the men on motorbikes shoots and the bullet cracks Left-Ear's window, but later on, you see that the glass is intact.
  
  
• Continuity: When Steve is driving the Bronco through the train yard, his mustache is missing.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In both the underwater scenes where the characters use oxygen tanks, we clearly see the oxygen bubbles they breathe out, however the water surface always remains still.
  
  
• Continuity: After the Minis fly out of the storm drain, Handsome Rob turns around and tells Left Ear to open his door, causing the motorcyclist to flip over the door. When the door is opened, the window is clearly up and in one piece, but is not there when the motorcyclist hits it and it is still intact and rolled up in later shots.
  
  
• Errors in geography: When the Minis are going down the metro, in the Hollywood and Highland station, it's not really the Hollywood and Highland station, but in fact the 7th and Metro station, stationed in Downtown Los Angeles.
  
  
• Errors in geography: The Metro train that Lyle stops is the blue line. The blue line runs from Downtown Los Angeles all the way to Long Beach. It doesn't go anywhere near Hollywood.
  
  
• Plot holes: Upon opening the armor car, Stella remarks that the safe is an unsuspected model with a glass relock system within the door that must not be shattered as she attempts to "crack" into it. It is highly unlikely the glass survived the explosion that undermined the truck, the 40-foot fall into the subway system onto concrete that the armor car took, nor the violent jostling of multiple tons of gold bars inside the safe itself. But she is worried about her drill breaking the highly-fragile pane.
  
  
• Continuity: Driving in the train yard Charlies extra fog lamps were off but when driving on to the train they where on.
  
  
• Factual errors: In the scene where Left-Ear is placing the explosives, he states that if the brass touches the side, they will be the last people each other will see. However, brass is a very poor conductor and would not be used in explosive applications. The best conductor, appropriately, would be gold.
  
  
• Continuity: When the Minis are racing through the city together, the blue one clearly has damage to the right hand side rear quarter panel. After they split and and the blue one does a left, it clearly has no damage now, or any time later.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: In the beginning of the movie, when they navigate the boat backwards into the dock, immediately after Charlie says "we're in", the full camera crew can be seen in the reflection of the boats window.
  
  
• Continuity: When Charlie is in the boat with the guys at the beginning, they find a gate to enter by making a left, as the camera shows this from the back. However, another camera shot shows them in the front, but this time they're making a right.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: When Stella's Mini is first loaded with weights, you see that some of them are strapped down and some are not. The ones that aren't strapped down would've been shifting around the inside of the car during the test run, and probably causing some decent damage. Yet we never see any of them shift their positions.
  
  
• Continuity: Positioning of the light rail train changes from when the last Mini passes in front of it, in the tunnel, in comparison to when Lyle stops the train.
  
  
• Continuity: Stella has a camera pinned on her lapel when she pulls up to Steve's house to fix the cable. Stella's left arm is on the steering wheel when Steve walks out of the house. The camera angle that Charlie and the others watch on the monitor moves with Steve as he walks to the vehicle which would have been impossible unless Stella moved the camera with her hand, or shifted her body. Her arm would have been visible in the Charlie's view. Then Stella still has her left arm on the steering-wheel when Steve walks to the door of the van.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: At the end of the movie, when Mark Wahlberg's character hands off the case of gold, he easily spins it around with one hand and lifts it off the ground very easily. Even if it's only half full of gold, the case would not be that easily to lift.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: During the chase scenes with the Minis the camera often shoots from inside the car through the front windshield. When it does the speedometer (the big dial in the middle of the dash) is always at 0.
  
  

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