Die Hard is regularly cited as one of the best action movies of all time. Its thrilling plot involves the chess match between New York City cop John McClane (Bruce Willis) and his antagonist, Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman). Gruber is considered one of the most fully-realized movie villains because of the cunning that went into his attempted robbery of $640 million dollars in bearer bonds from Nakatomi Plaza. Let's take a look at what exactly his plan entailed and why it most likely would never have worked, despite its brilliance.
Hans Gruber's Plan in Die Hard, Explained
Gruber's Die Hard plan was to first take control of the building by killing the guards, shutting down all but one of the elevators and cutting all the phone lines. He and his henchmen would then make their way to the thirtieth floor where a Christmas party was taking place. After taking the partygoers hostage, they would force Joseph Takagi, president of Nakatomi trading, to give up the combination to the high-security vaults housing the bonds. Whether Takagi reveals the code is unimportant since Gruber's hacker, Theo, can breach most of the vaults, and a contingency is in place for the final electromagnetically sealed vault. The authorities would then be alerted to a terrorist attack at the building, which would activate the FBI to the scene. Once the Feds had arrived, Gruber anticipated they would shut off the building's power, thus unlocking the final vault. His final stroke of genius was to take the hostages to the roof, which would be rigged with C4, and await the arrival of the helicopter transport he had negotiated from the FBI. If things went smoothly, he and his men would detonate the bombs and covertly escape during the turmoil following the explosion that presumably took their lives.
Why Gruber's Plan Wouldn't Have Worked
Gruber's Die Hard plan seems to be foolproof, but once you look past its sleek surface, a major weakness is revealed. There's no question that most of it would have gone smashingly. He and his men would have successfully seized the building, taken the hostages and emptied most of the vaults before alerting the authorities to a terrorist attack. Had McClane not been there to tip off the local police, the SWAT team would probably not have gotten involved until it was too late to stop him.
Next, the FBI would have arrived and cut off the building's power. Gruber and his men would then only have to collect the bonds, detonate the roof bombs and escape in the ambulance they had hauled into the building's underground parking garage inside of a Pacific Courier Truck. This is the point at which things would have gone awry. With the FBI and most likely the local authorities securing the building, it would have been difficult to escape by driving an ambulance out of the garage. It would look fishy coming out of there, and the police and Feds would likely have checked it carefully. Even if Gruber and his men were dressed as emergency personnel, other things would have given them away, such as their accents, lack of patience or general "bad guy" vibes. Assuming they did make it past the police and Feds, the bearer bonds could probably be traced back to the Nakatomi Plaza vaults.
Die Hard's Hans Gruber is one of the most charismatic villains to grace the screen with a mind devious enough to match, but in the end, all his planning would have resulted in a pile of unusable bonds.