Overall the show was good and I do not know how any of the illusions were done. Except of course the grand finale, the bullet catch. Anyone familiar with a semi auto handgun will have picked this up right away. The Glock is fired at the vase at which time the weapon would have cycled another round into the chamber. The shooter then takes the magazine out of the weapon leaving a round in the chamber. Steve then takes a round out of the magazine and lets an audience member sign it. He places the round into the magazine and the shooter loads it back into the weapon. The shooter does not cycle the weapon meaning the signed round remained in the magazine. The round fired could not have been the one handled by Steve or the audience member. It is not possible that the round fired ever left the weapon to be handled by Steve. This ruined the whole trick and made it completely obvious. As stated in the other review, when the shooter was practicing he had to manually cycle the weapon several times because it failed to cycle itself. Glocks are used widely by law enforcement due to the fact that they are very reliable. For a man that allegedly has fired 300,000 rounds from a Glock he would know immediately that that gun had a serious problem and should be serviced or replaced before performing a life or death stunt.
3 Reviews
please, spare me.
gs2019 October 2012
Warning: Spoilers
Normally, I would have found this show to be excellent just for the history lessons on magic alone (the magic teapot was well done) but when the focus shifted to the bullet catch segment I became mildly irritated. Is the bullet catch dangerous? of course! However, the previous presenters of this illusion, the dead ones anyway, were done in by errors, cruder ballistics and unreliable assistance and/or actual interference. While there was risk involved here as well, Cohen benefited from a much more simplistic method, much improved technology and much more trustworthy assistance or collaboration.
The first thing I noticed in the test firing of the gun was the failure of the weapon to blow back the slide on most of the shots indicating either a very, very dirty and/or malfunctioning gun (which I reject) or very underpowered ammunition (which makes more sense to me) The purpose of which was to slow down and limit the penetrating power of the bullet when shot through the glass into Cohen's bulletproof underwear, shirt, vest or whatever combination of bulletproof clothing he was wearing. The shooter was never supposed to actually fire at his mouth but was supposed to hit him in the chest which is why he clearly developed the precise type of severe bruising one receives when shot while wearing modern bulletproof clothing. Broken flying glass would never cause the type of injury he sustained. Bear in mind that even now the U.S. army is purchasing bulletproof underwear for our troops to limit shrapnel wounds. As well, one can buy bulletproof suits, button down shirts, undershirts etc of varying degrees of protection from many different sources. Already having a marked bullet in his mouth identical to the one loaded into the gun is just basic magic 101.
Just ask yourself if he would actually have allowed someone (no matter how good a shot) to shoot a fully charged 9mm bullet from twenty feet away at his mouth. Of course not. For these reasons, I do object to the amateurish manner in which the trick was done. There really is no mystery here.
The first thing I noticed in the test firing of the gun was the failure of the weapon to blow back the slide on most of the shots indicating either a very, very dirty and/or malfunctioning gun (which I reject) or very underpowered ammunition (which makes more sense to me) The purpose of which was to slow down and limit the penetrating power of the bullet when shot through the glass into Cohen's bulletproof underwear, shirt, vest or whatever combination of bulletproof clothing he was wearing. The shooter was never supposed to actually fire at his mouth but was supposed to hit him in the chest which is why he clearly developed the precise type of severe bruising one receives when shot while wearing modern bulletproof clothing. Broken flying glass would never cause the type of injury he sustained. Bear in mind that even now the U.S. army is purchasing bulletproof underwear for our troops to limit shrapnel wounds. As well, one can buy bulletproof suits, button down shirts, undershirts etc of varying degrees of protection from many different sources. Already having a marked bullet in his mouth identical to the one loaded into the gun is just basic magic 101.
Just ask yourself if he would actually have allowed someone (no matter how good a shot) to shoot a fully charged 9mm bullet from twenty feet away at his mouth. Of course not. For these reasons, I do object to the amateurish manner in which the trick was done. There really is no mystery here.
Not Very Good
yowilwasup25 March 2023
A poor narrator and a boring story doesn't a career make. 2hr self promotion. I don't know how gullible people were in 2012....by the looks of how things turned out 20 years later the answer is pretty gullible, apparently. And the getting easier to fool the people all the time. Just turn on the TV and see the "magicians" fool you. Just about any channel at any hour you will see part of the greatest act of illusion ever attempted. But they have the benefit of NOT having any skeptics. In today's world you do as youq told and believe what you are shown. At least we know a Steve Cohen is a baseball fan.
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