The Fugitive movie corrections

Richard Kimble: I didn't kill my wife!

Sam Gerard: I don't care.

Mistakes

When Richard Kimble comes back to the hospital and is seen by the nurse, they embrace. There is a shot with him facing the camera immediately followed by a shot of her facing the camera. Their arms have somehow magically changed positions from the original embrace. See more...

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When "Richard" starts to limp it wasn't planned, Harrison actually hurt a ligament in his knee shooting a promo for the movie, a promo that wasn't even part of the movie. He refused to receive treatment until filming was finished and ended up needing surgery. See more...

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The Fugitive (1993) - 23 corrections

Directed by Andrew Davis, starring Harrison Ford, Joe Pantoliano, Julianne Moore, Sela Ward, Tommy Lee Jones (add more)

Genres: Action, Crime, Drama, Thriller

Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. As such, any aggressive/abusive corrections (and I get quite a few) written as if they're comments I've made myself will be ignored. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click the edit icon under an entry, then choose "correct entry". Some entries have "duplicated entry" after them - these are entries which were already listed on the main page, but were submitted again. I occasionally leave these online for a while, just in case they were moved in error, so don't worry about pointing them out to me.

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In the crime scene photos and the flashbacks shown during Kimble's trial, the murdered Helen Kimble is lying on her side (where she died making the 911 call). Later, in Kimble's nightmare, she's lying on her back, when he turned her over to try to revive her, and later embrace her when he realized she was dead. He admitted to moving her, so shouldn't she have been in this position in the earlier scenes? Certainly for the crime scene photos at least. [The position was different in his NIGHTMARE, his mind. Kimble would be unable to recall the ordeal in perfect detail. We should only consider the crime scene photos accurate.]

When the police officer is describing Kimble to a man he thinks isn't him (really is), he says "brown hair". Kimble didn't have brown hair - it was gray. [Character mistake: he misremembers. Happens all the time.]

Corrected by Phixius

On the train towards the end Sykes kills the transit cop, and Richard Kimble is subsequently blamed for it. However, throughout the scene of Sykes killing the cop and his and Kimble's fight, there are at least two other people in the same car watching the whole thing who would be able to say with certainty that Kimble was not the one who killed the cop. He should never have been a suspect in that killing. [The logic however behind that is the police and everyone else knew what the audience does. In reality once Kimble and Sykes got off the train there was no telling what happened to those two people or what they told the police. Added to this Kimble was identified by the transit cop before being shot. The fact they are chasing a convicted murderer it wouldn't be too far of a stretch to think he was involved with the killing on the train. In the end Kimble is exonerated so obviously they must have eventually discovered he didn't kill the cop.]

Corrected by Lummie

The dummy that falls off the dam is very fake looking and looks nothing like Harrison Ford. [This mistake has already been corrected.]

At the end of the film when Kimble is fighting the other doctor on the roof of the hotel, they crash through a glass skylight into the elevator shaft. Tommy Lee Jones and Joey Pantoliano get to the broken window and look down at them, Joey holding his pistol out as if to shoot Kimble in the elevator shaft. Jones says no to him and he reholsters. Joey's pistol in this scene appears to be a stainless steel one, either a 1911 or a Smith and Wesson. However, inside the hotel later, in the climactic laundry room scene, Joey is holding a mid sized model Glock (all matte black), which is the one the other doc steals from him and tries to shoot Jones with. [Might it be possible that Joey Pantoliano's character follows the same protocol as exhibited earlier by Tommy Lee Jones' character, they carry more than one weapon, of different types? Remember at the dam, when Jones' lost his gun after a fall, and he had a second weapon on him?]

When Tommy Lee Jones has found out that Kimble is in "the presidential suite" he turns the car and goes to the hotel. If you look at the way he is turning the wheel compared to in what direction the car actually moves you will see that it doesn't fit - the car turns around to the left but the wheel is turned to the right. [Turning the wheel to the right is not a mistake. It is a common driving technique called counter-steering. When they whip the car around you would need to do this as well. Anyone that has driven in the snow or ice will know what I'm talking about.]

Harrison Ford insisted on doing the stunt where he jumps out of the overturned prison vehicle to escape the oncoming train himself. [Completely false, since there was no "stunt" involved. The image of Kimble jumping off the upturned bus was a special effect using a blue screen.]

When Kimble reaches the hospital the first time he takes a box and carries it inside, as if he is one of the delivery guys. Why does nobody notice him? Wouldn't the delivery men see that he isn't one of them? And wouldn't people notice his unkempt appearance and ask questions of him? [This is not a plot hole. The hospital is busy, with many other people walking around, and as we learn from his colleagues throughout the movie, Dr. Kimble is very smart and he would not do anything to draw attention to himself. Also, Kimble looks at the delivery truck (presumably to see if the driver sees him) before grabbing the box and entering the hospital.]

In the scene where Dr. Richard Kimble - posing as a janitor in a prosthetics lab - prints off a list of patients with a particular type of arm prosthesis, he quickly crumples up the paper and shoves it in his pocket. In the next scene, where Kimble is shown in a telephone booth calling people from the list, the paper has magically smoothed itself out. [It's not completely smooth. He probably uncrumpled it and pressed it out against something flat. People do that all the time.]

When Richard Kimble is running from the U.S. Marshals, to blend in with the parade he finds a green hat in the garbage can, but notice he approaches it like he knew it was in there to begin with. [Maybe he could see it from his vantage point. He's not that far away, it's a mesh can, and it's a very visible bright green.]

Kimble has just finished talking on the phone with his lawyer when the cops hear the noise in the background. They figure out the sound is that of an El-Train. They then start to list the different places that have an El. One of the cities they name is Milwaukee - there has never been an El-Train there! [This a character mistake not a movie mistake. ]

When Kimble is looking at the apartment, the landlady and son are speaking Polish. The landlady asks her son a question and he answers "Da" which is Russian. Polish is "tak". [In fact the landlady's son is speaking Polish - he says "ta" which is the ordinary form of "tak". The English parallel would be "yeah" instead of "yes".]

Time

When the car drives away at the end, with Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones in the back, the windows are clearly shut - however, just seconds before that they are clearly open, note especially when the door is closing, you can see it then! [I just watched the movie, the windows are down during the entire scene. As the car drives away you can see that the windows are still down since there is no reflections from exterior lights on them. Something that would be evident in a night scene shot on a brightly lit street.]

Wouldn't Kimble need a password to get into the computer database when he is getting a list for the patients with prosthetic limbs? [The computer is up and running when he accesses it. Someone left it logged on. Dumb idea, but it happens all the time.]

The prosecution uses Kimble's wife's 911 call as the most compelling evidence against him, since she says, "Richard. . .he's trying to kill me." Fair enough. But the first thing she says when the 911 operator is "There's someone in my house." As in an intruder, and not her husband. Why his lawyer doesn't jump on this is beyond me, as this should provide the jury with reasonable doubt, if not outright proof of Kimble's innocence. [The prosecutor may have said that Kimble's wife didn't know it was him at first.]

After Harrison Ford rents the apartment, he dyes his hair dark brown/black to add to his disguise. Later on, it magically returns to its original sandy grey colour. [He's washed the dye out of his hair (remember, we see him leaving a hotel). People know what he looks like with the black hair, so there's no point in sticking with the disguise. In fact, reverting back to his original appearance might help throw people off.]

There's a fundamental flaw with this whole film. In the United States being innocent doesn't entitle you to escape from prison; it isn't even legal grounds for appeal. Kimble may not have murdered his wife, but he is guilty of escape from legal custody, resisting arrest (by threatening a U.S. Marshall with a gun which is a federal offense) and dozens of lesser charges. [You're right that Kimble is guilty of these things, but how does that constitute a mistake? Nothing in the movie ever indicated he wasn't guilty of them. Nobody ever said he escaped because he was entitled to, and there is no proof that he won't be charged with any of the lesser offences you mention. All the movie shows is that Tommy Lee Jones believes (and cares) that he didn't kill his wife, and that he takes Kimble's handcuffs off as soon as they get in the police car. None of that makes this a mistake.]

When Tommy Lee Jones goes to the one-armed man's apartment, the one-armed man enters and says "I hell to hope you are a cop" instead of "I hope to hell you are a cop." [No, he doesn't - he says "I sure as hell hope you're a cop".]

Corrected by Tailkinker

In the St. Patrick's Day parade scene, Richard grabs a green hat from the trash can. This hat is completely different from the hat he is wearing later on that scene. [The top of the hat was flattened; he simply pushed it back out.]

Are we really supposed to believe that when Kimble falls over 30 feet onto the top of the (metal) elevator, he does not have even a scratch on him (let alone being dead.). He even falls directly onto his face, its just way to much to even be slightly believable. [The height from which he fell, which was actually more like 20 feet, is a very tricky height. Land wrong, and you can easily die. Land well, and it is not at all uncommon to walk away completely unharmed and unscathed. Kimble does not land on his face. His whole body absorbed the impact, making it even more believable that he was OK.]

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The Fugitive (1993) - 23 corrections