Continuity Gaffes in The Usual Suspects

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Continuity Gaffes in The Usual Suspects

Wednesday, July 21st, 2004 | The Usual Suspects |

In chapter 8 the emerald smuggler flies into New York City and is met by New York’s Finest Taxi Service. “New York’s Finest Taxi Service was not your normal taxi service. It was a ring of corrupt cops in the NYPD that ran a high-profit racket driving smuggers and drug dealers all over the city. For a few hundred dollars you got your own blue and white and a police escort.”

The movie shows the smuggler’s plane arriving, with front and back views of the jet airplane. Do you notice anything wrong?

These aren’t front and back views of the same plane. The first plane has four jet engines on the wings. The second plane has two. I wasn’t eagle-eyed enough to notice it myself, but Bryan Singer and Chris McQuarrie mention it on the audio commentary track.

I mention this to point out that some anomolies in the movie might be meaningful, or they may just be unintentional oversights, like this one. The commentary track notes other mistakes. In the parking garage robbery, Keaton wrestles a SIG P220 out of Saul Berg’s hand and kicks it across the cement floor to McManus. When McManus picks it up, the SIG P220 has turned into a Browning Hi-Power.

4 Comments to Continuity Gaffes in The Usual Suspects

gunner
July 21, 2004

http://www.nitpickers.com/movies/repository.cgi?pg=t&sp=i&tt=780
and
http://www.moviemistakes.com/film1363
I go to the two listed here regularly.

Les Jones
July 23, 2004

Gunner: those links are awesome. Between you and Tana, I’m learning about a lot of good movie sites.

Tana D.
August 7, 2004

–SPOILER–SPOILER–SPOILER–etc.

I love the McQuarrie/Singer commentary track! It’s so funny. It also made me notice a tie-in for the first time when they talk about the opening of the film:

the “cripple” makes a cripple out of Keaton. Yeah, I know, I’m slow and probably the last person to notice…

Dave
February 15, 2007

The plane seen from the front is a 747; the one from the back is a DC10. John Ottman says they used the DC10 footage because it was such a good shot and they didn’t have anything of a 747 landing from behind.