In the opening scene where Kate is sweeping the rooms of the cartel-owned house she is narrowly missed by a shotgun blast. In return she fires several shots, one of which hits the man in the left cheek. In the close-up shot moments later, the man's face does not contain any bullet wounds.
Matt Graver randomly appears with different hair colors. Back-and-forth between a young man's dark brown hair devoid of gray, sometimes the "salt and pepper" of a 50-ish year old man, and sometimes heavier gray streaked throughout.
When the FBI ram the house in Chandler, the personnel carrier drives under a large porch beside the garage. In later shots, the porch is gone, and the hole is in a wall flush with the front of the garage.
Alejandro uses a Heckler & Koch MP5A3 during the border crossing shootout but it changes to a Heckler & Koch MP5SD3 when they get back in their cars.
In the first scene, officers are clearing items out of the shed in the backyard of the raided house. Initially both men are wearing rubber gloves when the camera is zoomed out. Once the camera zooms in, suddenly they are both clearing items bare-handed.
When the team first goes to Mexico, some of their Mexican police escorts have the word "Policia" misspelled on their vests, with the acute accent on the first "i" instead of the second. On the cars the word is spelled correctly.
The justification for the FBI Agents being used was that the CIA can't conduct missions on US soil. This would also go for the Delta Force operators. Active duty Army personnel can't be armed and participate in law enforcement operations due to the Posse Comitatus Act. (An exception for drug operations was made during the Clinton administration, hence why Delta Force snipers were on-site and shooting at Waco, as the Branch Davidians were falsely accused of running a methamphetamine lab in the compound by the man who wanted the leadership position but left when David Koresh was elected their leader.)
When Kate and Reggie go out to the car to get their tactical gear, Kate hands a couple of plates to Reggie and says, "Front and back." The implication is that either they're inserting extra trauma plates into their plate carriers for additional protection, or that their carriers have no armor plates at all. However, the plates she hands him are side plates that go in a carrier to help protect the wearer's sides.
During the drone footage, the longitude data displayed is 111 degrees, 97 minutes, 15.69 seconds. Minutes in longitude rolls over to another degree at 60 minutes, so this longitudinal position does not exist.
Under the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 and the Insurrection Act of 1807 the US military cannot be used in domestic law enforcement roles unless specifically ordered by the President of the United States. Even then, they would be under the direction law enforcement officials, using military officers as their liaisons.
The CIA is not a law enforcement agency. While it may be able to direct US military operatives in foreign countries, it would not be able to legally do so inside of the United States without violating multiple laws.
The CIA is not a law enforcement agency. While it may be able to direct US military operatives in foreign countries, it would not be able to legally do so inside of the United States without violating multiple laws.
Matt inquires into the backgrounds of Kate and Reggie at the meeting. He is told Reggie has a law degree. He then says "there are no lawyers on this train". Later, when Kate is asking Alejandro about himself, he reveals he was a prosecutor in Juárez. Also, when Reggie presses Matt about details of their objective saying he wants to know everything, Matt just says out loud, "Fucking lawyers". However, Alejandro being a former lawyer is probably not a mistake because it is revealed the real objective of the task force is to help Alejandro get revenge for his family and so he now has complete disregard for the rule of law.
An interior shot of the red Impala used at the bridge scene shows that there are no keys in the vehicle's ignition.
At the bridge scene, when Steve Forsing uses his Eotech sight to target one of the vehicles, you can see that his weapon is not charged. You can see into the ejection port on the right side of his M4, indicating that the bolt is in the rear position and therefore there is no round in the chamber.
In the final scene where Alejandro forces Kate to sign the paper, he drops the magazine and disassembles the slide of the pistol from the frame. In order to do this with Glock firearms, the magazine must first be removed, and then the chamber must be cleared by cycling the slide and resetting the trigger. The trigger must then be pulled to drop the firing pin. After this is done two hands must be used, one hand to pull the slide back slightly and the other to pull the take down lever in front of the trigger guard (with two fingers) while pushing the slide assembly forward and off the frame. In order to get this shot the slide was already partially removed in order to get the swift and cool disassembly motion as shown.
When Kate shoots the bad guy in the house, she checks his pulse with her gloves still on and shakes her head. A pulse would have to be felt with bare hands.
When the team is stopped in traffic at the border, a green Honda civic is identified as a threat. When Alejandro raises his gun and turns to face the threat he clearly sweeps Kate's head and face with the muzzle of his SMG, which is a blatant safety violation.
Towards the beginning of the film (at around 26 mins) we see the convoy driving to Ciudad Juárez on the highway. In the reflection of the last car one can see the Russian Arm used to film the vehicles.
(at around 33 mins) Camera car extension visible in Federal police car window.
The traffic scenes supposedly shot in Juárez include the characteristic green and gray "Pesero" buses and the red and yellow taxis of Mexico City. Neither of those types of public transport exist in Juárez.
The exterior runway scenes set at Luke AFB (which in reality is near Phoenix, Arizona) show the characteristic Sandia Mountain Range in the background (which is in Albuquerque, New Mexico).
When lifting off from Luke AFB they show the overflight of runway heading '35'. Luke's runways are 03 and 21. This scene was most likely filmed at Altus Air Force Base in Oklahoma based on the number of C-17 aircraft, the arid location, and the fact Altus has a "35" runway.
The opening scene is supposedly in Chandler, AZ, in a cul-de-sac of homes surrounded by sandy, brushy hills. There are no hills in Chandler. Chandler was formerly farmland and is therefore very flat.
Actually, South Eastern Chandler does border some low hills as shown.
Actually, South Eastern Chandler does border some low hills as shown.
The car dropping them off at the private jet at Luke AFB before leaving for El Paso has a Texas registration sticker on its windshield. Luke AFB is in Arizona.
At 3:50 and 4:42 the bodies hidden in the suspected "kidnap house" are shown only to have had the heads bagged. Given that poor wrapping, the stench of decomposition would not only have rendered the house uninhabitable, but it would have generated numerous complaints from the neighbors, and thus would not have been a secret until the one cartel man shot at Macer and hit the wall instead. Contrast this with the very careful wrapping by the "dinner party crew" in John Wick (2014), which might have worked for long-term storage.
After the arrests at the bank, it is stated the perpetrators had been making deposits of $9,000 every day to avoid government reporting, which is a form of structuring. However, bank employees in the US are trained to report suspicious cash deposits. Depositing $9,000 a day every day for years would definitely count as suspicious.
In the sequence following the arrests at the bank, it is stated that something illegal may have occurred that the IRS would be needed to figure out. Making daily deposits of 9000 dollars to avoid the cash transaction reporting limit of 10,000 dollars is a crime known as "structuring". Any law enforcement officer familiar with the narcotics trade would know this.
When Graver first shows up at the FBI office and inquires about Kate, he is told that she has been "kicking doors since day one" and has never worked a case from a desk. FBI SWAT teams are made up of regular Special Agents who perform tactical duties on an as-needed basis. Unless this is the most overworked SWAT team in history, it is unbelievable that Kate has never actually worked a case.
Matt refers to the Arizona border town of Sasabe but mentions that it's east of Nogales. It's actually west of Nogales. He also mispronounces it, saying it as if it's a Spanish word, "sah-SAH-bay", while locally it is pronounced closer to its O'Odham origin: "SASS-uh-bee".