Goofs

Lorraine escapes from the stairwell fight in a car. The blond thug jumps on the hood, she shoots him, and he falls in front of the moving car, but the car does not jolt as if it just ran over a body. More thugs pursue in a black car, but she shoots the driver, and their car collides with a parked yellow car and flips over. Seconds later, when her escape is blocked and she takes off in reverse, the blond thug's body, the flipped black car, and the wrecked yellow car have all vanished.

When the KGB thug starts the music, the PLAY button on the boombox stays depressed, as is normal for a cassette player from the period. However, when he smashes the boombox minutes later, the PLAY button is no longer depressed although the music is still playing.

When James is hit by the car, the top of back window of the van in front of him is broken. However, in ensuing shots, the window randomly changes from intact to broken to missing completely.

Outside the airplane, it's pouring, yet Lorraine is completely dry.

Delphine stabs Percival in the lower chest through the rib cage, and then even deeper directly between his shoulder blades, which would suggest damage to his spine. He makes the injury worse by falling against a door and driving the blade in deeply. Later he is seen having bandaged around his abdomen, and when turning round the deep wound in his back is off to the right and so minor that it does not even need treatment.

Once in the movie the supposedly German words "Sovietische Handelsmission" ( "Soviet Trade Mission") can be seen. The first of these two words is spelled incorrectly. The correct version is "Sowjetische Handelsmission".

When splicing tape taken from various sources there is always ambient (background) noise, particularly when recorded outdoors. It would be extremely easy for a spliced conversation to be revealed as such. Even if the spliced conversations were recorded at the same time and the splice is angled, a pro could easily detect the slight difference at the crossover.

Near the beginning of the film, when agent Lorraine Broughton is being given her mission debriefing after James Gascoigne's death, it is stated he was killed with a Tokarev 7.62 bullet. However, the picture of the casing is not from a 7.62 Tokarev. The 7.62 Tokarev has a very unique shape that distinguishes it from other rounds. While it is very likely that an Eastern European gun would have been used, the casing profile more closely resembles a Makarov 9x18.

Percival pours a 5 gallon drum of gasoline over his apartment and then runs a trail of fuel to the hallway. The trail of fuel is lit and creates a gently burning line which ignites the apartment. In reality it is the fuel vapor which burns, and in volume in a enclosed space would ignite explosively. Rather than a steady fire there would have been an immediate huge explosion. This is a common error in movies.

The underground trains shown are definitely not a type that ever has been used in Berlin. In addition they are not yellow. Since 1929 all Berlin buses and underground trains are painted yellow. The trains are correctly tagged with a BVG (Berlin public transport) logo, however a modern one, not in use in the eighties.

When Lorraine enters the Central Café, the music played in the background is "Der Kommissar", but it is the 2005 version performed by After the Fire, with English lyrics. Considering that the action is set in Berlin in 1989, we should be hearing the 1981 song, performed in German by (Austrian singer) Falco.

Several songs on the soundtrack are remakes, some involving non-original artists, and others are post-1989 edits or remixes. These are presumably deliberate creative choices by the filmmakers and not unintentional anachronisms.

During the car chase, one of the pursuing cars is t-boned by a truck and flips. There's clearly no actual impact between the two vehicles, and the mortar used to flip the car is plainly visible.

A man is playing Tetris; he stands up and walks away from the computer but the Tetris block still moved to the side wall without command or Foley.

Early in the movie, the concrete barriers (over which a body is dropped) clearly move and bend like foam props.

David Percival's car is ostensibly a Porsche 911 Turbo but has features indicating it's a replica "Turbo look" car and not an authentic but rare Turbo. The movie car lacks two-piece lower rocker panels (evidenced by the split in the panel below the rear door seam) and has a single tailpipe on the right, not the dual exit exhaust of the real Turbo.

When Lorraine kicks a policeman backwards through a glass table, a puff of smoke from the squib that shatters the table is visible on the left. This was confirmed by the stunt coordinator in a featurette about the stunts in that particular scene.

Once in the movie, which takes place in November 1989, a speaker on the radio says that refugees from the GDR have only now been allowed to enter the embassy of Czechoslovakia. But that had already happened in the summer and fall of 1989.

The aircraft at the end of the movie that Lorraine boards is a Gulfstream V, which wasn't introduced until 1997.

Various alcohol bottles at bars and on Percival's desk did not exist in 1989. For example, Percival has a bottle of Tito's Vodka which wasn't released until 1997.

At 33:10 into the film the Brandenburg Gate is seen, with the Iron Cross and the eagle clearly visible on the Quadriga. However, these were not restored to their places until after the German reunification.

When Lorraine is walking through Alexanderplatz to the Kino International, she crosses the road. The Ampelmännchen (traffic light men) aren't the rotund East Berlin style, with a hat, but rather the generic West Berlin style. These wouldn't have existed in East Berlin in 1989.

While acting as Lorraine's tour guide, David points out Brandenburg Gate and then Checkpoint Charlie. The only way to pass the Gate first and the Checkpoint second with them to the right was to drive in East Berlin, and not West Berlin where the characters are supposedly driving.

When agent Broughton changes from Alexanderplatz to the Kino International she just crosses the street. In fact both locations lay over 600 meter away from each other.

If indeed "Spyglass" had memorized the entire list of agents, including the double-agent "Satchell" there is no way he would have allowed himself and his family to be escorted by either James Macavoy or Charlize Theron's characters.

Lorraine Broughton mentions that she met the group of KGB agents near "Palast der Republik". The place they really met was the cinema (as seen in the movie) "Kino International" more than 1.2km/0.75 miles away from the former "Palast der Republik". Since the "Kino International" ("Cinema International") was a famous one, every local would know exactly where that was.

When Lorraine and Spyglass are on the stairs, Spyglass holds up index and middle fingers when he tells Lorraine there are two more enemies. A German would not indicate "two" like this - he would hold up thumb and index finger.

At about 1:35 when Broughton is being questioned by C and the CIA man, both men are shown with striped ties. Both ties have the stripes going the same way, top right to bottom left. However British ties go from top left to bottom right. It is unlikely that the head of MI6 would wear an American tie.

For the murdered MI6 agent, his surname on the contact sheet shown in the meeting between C, Gray and Broughton shows his surname as Gascoine. It is Gasciogne in the end credits.