Derren Brown, the British mind magician and all around annoying show off, has wowed the slackjawed public with his latest special, Hero at 30,000 feet, in which he takes a bad actor an average guy and turns him into a hero? at 30,000 feet (this is achieved with a plane in case you haven't yet realised it).
Now, I'm not one to nit-pick (not true, I really am), but I had a bone to pick with this show. Most people will tell you that it was all staged and that it was done with split screen technology or something equally annoying, but that wasn’t the problem.
The problem was? Derren Brown appears to have just made a mockumentary version of Donnie Darko.
Let's examine the evidence. Donnie Matt is an average guy who isn't fulfilling his potential and is yearning to be special. One night he sleepwalks after being woken up by a mysterious voice that tells him he has about a month until a life changing event will occur. By this point all that's missing is an 80s soundtrack and some rabbit ears on Brown. I half expected Matt to reveal he was just Jake Gyllenhaal wearing a, ?stupid man suit.?
Derren, who is now quite obviously channelling Frank the Rabbit, then wakes up Matt again, to bring him into the middle of a field to explain how his life is unfulfilled. We are then introduced to an animal that Matt is told represents power, a crocodile, in the film this part was played by the statue of the school?s mascot. As much as I wanted to see Matt put an axe through its skull it, unfortunately, never happened.
Matt then goes through a series of events that includes theft, breaking into the house of a respected member of society (the police commissioner, who isn't a paedophile in this show, or so we're lead to believe) and a feat of super human strength when he breaks out of the strait jacket on the train tracks.
At one point, Brown even says Matt is going through a, ?transformation from ordinary to extraordinary,? you know, like that high school kid who could time travel and had superpowers. What was his name again? Oh yeah, Donnie Darko.
But most of all, at the end of the show, a plane carrying some of his loved ones is supposed to be falling out of the sky and only he can save them!
Also the whole thing made about as much sense as Donnie Darko, but at least Drew Barrymore wasn?t in it.
Reading Festival 2010 says
Ah, very good Kris
Mof Gimmers says
Comment received via email:
Having just watched the show (“Derren Brown: Hero at 30,000 feet”) I feel compelled to write this! Let us begin: I usually watch Derren’s programmes with a sense of genuine amazement and am left feeling that I have witnessed one of the world’s top performers and master “suggestion-ists” at work! NOT ANYMORE!!! “Hero at 30,000 feet” began with all the flair and pizzazz so many of Derren’s fans are used to. Matt (the unsuspecting victim of the show) was subject to the standard procedure of Derrem selecting the perfect candidate. In this instance, Matt was portrayed as a regular, unassuming guy. He was, like so many of us, not one to jump to danger, rather, he shied away from being a “hero” and continued filling in his application form when smoke was rising from underneath an adjacent room’s door. The only smoke Matt was interested in was his smokin’-hot girlfriend. From here-on-in the show turned into a farce, with Matt obviously being told/finding of his impending fate. Firstly, Matt was involved in an armed robbery at a petrol station. He acted as any regular person (un-hero) would, but it was his subsequent cool persona that left my eyebrow beginning to blend into hairline. I don’t consider myself to be a particularly confident person, but I am far from being a big-girl’s-blouse. Thus, after having a gun thrusted towards you from a foul-mouthed and downright mean robber, Matt displayed a calm when talking to one of Derren’s staged “policemen” that led me to believe that (recently mugged at gun-point) Matt had half a brain and put 2 and 2 together and realised that it is unlikely that a solitary policeman would turn up to the scene of such a potentially deadly situation. I would have, at the very least, been touching cloth. But I’ll allow that event to slip the net and take it on face value. It was the following “experiences” that have really made me lose faith in my once-beloved Derren. Our poor Matt was left literally moments from a terrible (multi-angled) doom when he was tied in a straight-jacket, legs bound, and left on a train track with Derren standing idly by, finally revealing how one can free themselves from Houdini’s favourite night-wear when the single carriage train was merely feet away from slicing and dicing our usually trendy protagonist. Let’s just say that Matt was far from freaked by Derren’s laissez faire attitude and instead rubbed his eyes in an unconvincing scared fashion and spoke how he never wants to be in that situation again (obviously, but not exactly what Derren had in mind). Surely after being freed a stern finger pointing was the least Derren deserved, maybe a little hairdryer treatment too? However, none of these facades accumulate to biggest bullsh*t storm as the programme’s climactic scene. Matt (who helpfully is/was petrified of flying) had to land an airplane after the pilot suffered what can only be described as a bad case of the boo-boo’s. The ill-fated pilot looked like my dad asleep on a Sunday, post-roast. Matt had to demonstrate his newly acquired heroic status by volunteering to land said plane. Time appeared to fly by (sorry) as from when Matt bit the bullet on the actual plane and agreed to save his (poorly acted) fellow passengers in the bright sunshine, then to be snapped out of his trance and land the plane-sim with evening scenery. Oh yea, and where was the co-pilot???? I’ve seen enough trashy tv shows to know just poorly true-to-life the screen on a plane simulator can be. Dodgy Derren, oh Derren, you have broken my heart! :-( I miss the disclaimer at the start declaring that the show’s victims are real and DEFINITELY NOT “stooges”, but I suppose that wasn’t relevant in “Hero at 30,000 feet”. I feel let down at this blatant lie of a programme! Leave the inspirational shows to those using mood-altering music, slowed down camera trickery and a host that has been inspired themselves. Put YOUR life in danger again! That was the Derren I loved! I want that Derren back!
Ria says
And he didn’t even pay the taxi driver.
Kris Silver says
There was quite a few things like that. 1 copper turning up to an armed robbery and only 1 pilot. Also Matt never seemed to change his clothes.
Easylife says
Odd, that Matt didn’t share his bed with his hot girlfriend.