This year, the US Federal Reserve will shred an estimated 5.6 billion damaged, out-of-date or just a plain grotty banknotes worth a combined $175 billion and send them to be incinerated.
Money gets trashed regularly and mostly no one notices but what if a powerful hurricane and a gang of sophisticated thieves happened to be headed right towards where it’s kept?
That’s the premise of “The Hurricane Heist,” the latest release from veteran director Rob Cohen, the creator of the megabucks “Fast and Furious” franchise.
“A shoot-out is no longer just a shoot-out, a chase is no longer just a chase. Any of the tropes of action films suddenly have to reinterpreted by taking place in 140 mph winds and driving rain,” the 68-year-old told AFP. “It just seemed like, what a delicious challenge to be able to create a hurricane itself, but to create an action film within it.”
“The Hurricane Heist” stars Toby Kebbell (“Kong: Skull Island”) as Will Rutledge, a government meteorologist tracking Hurricane Tammy, the fiercest storm in US history, headed for coastal Alabama.
As the locals evacuate, the US mint in the fictional town of Gulfport race against time to shred $600 million in old bills before Tammy hits — but a gang of tech-savvy robbers have other ideas.
Extreme weather is a nightmare all too real for Cohen, who remembers a particularly terrifying storm when he was growing up in the small commuter town of Cornwall, an hour’s drive north of New York City.
“We got hit with a hurricane somewhere in the 1950s and all I remember is the power going out and trees falling. You hear the trees snapping and falling, and those banshee winds howling,” he recalls.
