When Giovanni is talking to the man at the sewage plant, the plant man's glasses are spattered with something. When he turns to the side, they're clean, and when he turns back to Giovanni, they're dirty again.
When Henri breaks it off to Belle on the phone, a tears falls from her eye. In the next shot, it's gone.
Fred Blake talks to M. Chambard who is lying on the road. In some camera shots M. Chambard's hands are over his chest. When viewed from behind, his hands are on the ground.
In the movie, the personnel guarding the family are FBI agents. In actuality, the Witness Security Program is operated by the U.S. Marshals Service, not the FBI.
A running gag is the absence of peanut butter. In fact, peanut butter can be readily found anywhere in France.
A high school student is said to be in the 12th grade. There is no such thing in the French system. In fact, the school doesn't remotely resemble a French high school. In its academics, social structure, cafeteria and even a school paper, it is merely an American high school transplanted to rural France.
French high school students are shown driving to school. The legal driving age in France is 18. High school (collège) ends at age 15. Even if the school depicted is meant to be a lycée (post-secondary university preparation - which a foreign student would be unlikely to qualify for), the students would still be too young to drive.
At the auditorium when the movie Les Affranchis (1990) starts, the line "as far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster" can be heard followed by the musical queue. Yet, this is not the opening line but rather "what's that noise?" referring to a man in the trunk of a car. The famous line by Ray Liotta isn't heard until the first minute of the movie.
When Fred opens up the Brother keyboard, the A and Q are in each others placement.
On a French Keyboard the top line is AZERTY. The Q and the A change place, along with the Z and the W.
The school publishes La Gazette. Serge's wife runs from the house and says:
"Serge. They've published your son's poem." He says that he'll read it on the plane. She hands him a folded copy of the paper yet when we see it resting on his chest while he sleeps on the plane. it is uncreased. Pristine. As though it had just come off the presses.
Maggie blows up (part of) the grocery store. Almost immediately we hear the siren of a fire tender. We see the fire truck pass Maggie's car within a minute. Too soon, guys. Too soon.
Maggie keeps looking for peanut butter as "beurre de cacahuetes"-this is not the correct French translation which is beurre d'arachide.
The movie is set in 1995 but the Sony Disc player used by Belle and the DeeJay TV listing on the back of the La Repubblica newspaper are both from some time after 2002.
When the hitmen arrive in the train station they take two cars, a Mercedes and a BMW. The BMW is a 5 Series (E39) which production began from September 1995. Since the action is taking place according to the school newspaper in May 1995, this car model isn't on the market yet.
During the flashback with Fred glad-handing around town (supposedly in the 1970s), modern vehicles are visible in the foreground.
When the Robert DE Niro character attends the film society's showing of 'Goodfellas', there's only a single 35mm projector. Since the maximum Reel time would be about 20 minutes, it would mean seven Reel changes which would make the movie very frustrating to watch.
So Robert Deniros character discussed with Tommy Lee Jones that they've known each other for 19 years. This is not correct - He does not say they have known each other 19 years, he says "...known each other what, nine, ten years already".
Assuming that Robert Deniros aka Fred Blake had been in witness protection that long. However the kids are only 15 and 17 which if they were born whole under protection why does Michelle Phieffer tell the son I'm the beginning to stop the provocative language they are not in Brooklyn anymore. Add if the son remembered living in Brooklyn.
In earlier scene in the class, Warren Blake wrote on the notebook:"If it's good enough for you, it's godunov for me." Later, when it was printed on the newspaper, it said:" If it's godunov for you, it's good enough for me."
Stansfield refers to Domenick Lombardozzi's character, Caputo, as 'Mimmo' when coming in to check up on the Manzoni's after their first day in town.