The deleted scenes reveal the sequence involving the National Archives employee began as a post-credits tag.
We see Hutch’s in-laws at a bar with their bag of gold bars, celebrating their windfall. A few beers in, Michael Ironside’s curiosity outweighs his better judgement, and he phones an old friend, the National Archives employee present in the final cut.
As in the final cut, the employee attempts to search for Hutch, and gets “Access Denied.” Puzzled, he heads to the basement where he finds the hard-copy file redacted to near solid black.
Here, the sequence diverges from the final cut. When the employee returns to his desk, he finds the office deserted and the Barber waiting. The Barber takes the redacted file and scares the employee into silence. During this scene, we see the Barber sporting eight-trey cufflinks reminiscent of Hutch’s seven-deuce tattoo.
Cut back to Hutch’s in-laws. They leave the bar drunk and find the Barber waiting. The brother-in-law gets tough, and the Barber executes an incapacitating kidney punch. After lowering the brother-in-law to the street, the Barber advises the men to avoid future inquiries about Hutch, and the father-in-law agrees. The Barber then asks where he can get ice cream.
Putting aside the inanity of the Barber’s apparent teleportation, the final cut changes proved wise. Showing more of the Barber weakens the character’s mystique and the attempt at comedy lessens his edge.
That said, the scene does explain the incongruity in the final cut, where we see the Archives employee return with the redacted document only to cut to the hacker tossing a slew of photographs and other information at Yulian’s feet before announcing she’s out.
