Derren does it again! Although conspiracy theorists would say that governments have been doing this for decades. Three business men and a woman are put through a selection of "motivational" courses where Derren aims to subliminally motivate them to perform an armoured car raid. Do they do it you will have to see! Derren may at times be a little too smug for my liking but you can't do what he does without having a commanding ego. Not much more to say if you have seen any of Derren's previous work you will pretty much know what to expect from this latest outing. Funnily enough with all that real money being thrown around it did not say at the end if the participants got any of it for going through what they did!
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gaioscott4 January 2006
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The_Void8 January 2006He's played Russian Roulette, he's held a séance...he's done...some other stuff, but now Derren Brown is using his awesome mind control powers to subliminally influence four lucky contestants to steal £100,000 from a security guard on a quiet London street! I like Derren Brown because, aside from being good at what he does; you can tell that he genuinely believes that he is great. He also makes a great host, and unlike a lot of other TV 'magicians', he's willing to try stuff that hasn't been done before, and therefore new and original television is the result. This show proved interesting for me, as a lot of the methods are used are linked to psychology, which is an area of fascination for yours truly; shown by the fact that I'm studying it at University. The way that Derren subliminally influences people is genius, and also very funny. There is a part during the show when the contestants are convinced to steal some sweets from a newsagent. Naturally, it starts to arouse the suspicion of the shop assistants after ten or so people wearing suits have entered the shop and tried to steal something! Overall, this isn't the best thing I've seen on television - but it one of the best shows recently, and I hope to see more from Derren in the future.
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farsk_chi6 January 2006Derren Brown convinces 3 out of 4 sleazy middle-management business types to commit armed robbery. Brilliant! Yet again proof that "mind control" and the power of persuasion is a real usable tool in the modern world. I did find it a bit strange that the guests invited to the seminar weren't a bit more suspicious as Derren Brown slowly introduced the colours, the words, the symbols and the Jackson 5 song and when all the factors were recreated in the street. And the expressions on the guests faces during the paired words/electric shock test were pretty horrific at some points. Overall however, I feel that Derren Brown has yet again put forward a thought provoking- and entertaining- study of the malleability of the human mind. Recommended viewing as a non mind-numbing piece of reality TV.
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sub_mish17 August 2010This is the most frightening thing I've seen on TV since Threads.
Brown proves once again that you can scoop a bunch of people off the streets and make them do pretty much anything. In this case he takes a bunch of suits and turns them into violent, ruthless criminals within a matter of weeks. The techniques are more "superliminal" than subliminal, and seem pretty transparent to us, the audience, yet Brown's "victims" really do act out the scenario, time and again. Three out of four norms pulled the heist.
Hypnotism, mind control, whatever you want to call it - it really works! A thought provoking and frightening example of real-life brainwashing in action. -
jboothmillard5 January 2006Derren Brown does quite a few specials shows including Russian Roulette, Séance and The Gathering. Now, he is bringing about 20 normal members of the public to perform another "stunt". Basically he convinces all of them to commit a robbery, without them knowing it. So he makes them see the colour green a lot, plays a Jackson 5 song that they'll remember and says a lot of words that criminals would use. So first he gets them to steal sweets from a newsagents. Then he chooses four finalists to be the robbers. Basically a closed off street (by the police) will help a walking victim to commit a robbery of a suitcase filled with £50,000. They throw in all the tempting elements until they decide to pull out a near realistic gun to commit the robbery. 3 out of the four do it! A good trickery special showing how easily we can be tempted to do something. Good!
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nedatronics20 May 2008I'm pretty skeptical when it comes to mind control theories but the Heist, strange as it may seem, doesn't appear to disapprove those doubts more than it does cement them. I think Derren Brown pushed the envelope abit too far to lead us to believe that mind control such as the power of suggestion and key words/colors/music could seemingly turn a law abiding Jack-of-the street into an armed robber in a matters of days. Highly suspicious don't you think? But coming to think more closely about the Heist..at no point did Derren(as careful a planner as he is) tell us, the audience, that the bank robbery in the middle of what seems to be a deserted street in the middle of England in broad daylight wasn't an actual instruction given by him to his subjects. Of course he did tell us that no psyche altering material had either been added to or deleted from the show but to be critical, a direct instruction to rob a cash van doesn't equal a mind controlling mechanism, correct me if am wrong. So to cap it all off, although i found the show to be quite interesting and brain tickling, i fail to concur that the devices used by Derren actually worked in this instance, although they could have worked elsewhere. Please be free to criticize my views.