There’s really no limit to how much research a writer can do; in fact, the more the better. Screenwriter of “Die Hard with a Vengeance” — arguably the best sequel in the franchise, which also has an absurd alternate ending — Jonathan Hensleigh truly took that to heart when coming up with the elaborate plot of John McClane’s (Bruce Willis) third outing in New York City.
It’s one thing that he impeccably nailed the characters, cheeky humor, and unfolding of the story, but he also lent an uncanny authenticity to the heist that takes place at its center. So much so that after the NYPD (which deployed a robot dog in 2021) read his script for obvious reasons, the FBI reached out to him because they found his knowledge about the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and its vault rather suspicious and alarming — as he shared in a DVD commentary (via Uproxx).
He said, “One day I got a call from the FBI. They were extremely concerned about how I knew so much about the Federal Reserve, and how the Federal Reserve’s vaults were really close to a subway spur, and logistically about the aqueduct tunnel, etc. I said, ‘Well guys, the reason why I know what the vault looks like in the Federal Reserve is because they let us down there. They showed it to us. The reason why I know that a subway spur is very close to the vault and that you could actually tunnel through it is because they showed us the plans and the layout.” Then he continued, “And the reason why I know there’s an aqueduct tunnel coming down through Manhattan that you can drive these trucks through is because I read about it in the New York Times Sunday Magazine. I really don’t have any kind of secret proprietary knowledge that I shouldn’t have.”
It turns out, the FBI took Die Hard with a Vengeance very seriously
If you recall, “Die Hard with a Vengeance’s” villain, Simon Gruber (played by Jeremy Irons), disguises his robbery of the Federal Reserve vault by creating distractions all over the city that keep the police (and McClane) occupied. Meanwhile, his men sneak into the vault to steal $140 billion in gold bullion and transport it out via trucks through a water tunnel that’s under construction.
Now, according to Heinsleigh, the FBI (which recently warned Americans to replace Wi-Fi routers) actually considered Gruber’s evil plan more than doable in real life — if there were any criminals bold enough to attempt it, that is. As he recalled, “This one scene, our FBI guy said, ‘You know it sounds crazy, but somebody could actually pull this off. We’re going to actually have a sit-down [meeting] and talk about how we can improve the facility so that it could never happen.’ That pleased me, actually.”
If you’re a writer who creates fiction, I don’t know if there’s any better feedback to get (as far as authenticity goes) than the FBU calling a meeting based on a script you wrote for the sole reason of entertaining the masses. Sure enough, “Die Hard with a Vengeance” became an instant classic, blowing up the box office and making over $366 million worldwide against its $90 million budget in 1995. It’s one of the greatest action flicks of its era, and Hensleigh’s script undoubtedly played a pivotal part in achieving that.
