"Breakdown" DVD by Dan Army
Suggested Retail USD$20.00
Available from your favorite dealer
In a Blink: 1 Out of 10

"Breakdown", a DVD by Dan Army, purports to be a coin vanish, advertises itself as the vanish of any small object, and in the end becomes a very slight modification of an old method that is so poorly presented it's not worth the money or the trouble.

"Breakdown" is touted as being "revolutionary", that the coin is so well vanished the spectators can "search you until doomsday", and uses a method that is "absolutely ingenious". My take? It's an old idea, with a very slight modernization, that goes back to before Houdin and which, with Army's update, becomes too impractical for pretty much anyone but the hobbyists in our number.

Army's "Breakdown" is essentially an impromptu body servant. He credits Bobo for his inspiration, but the actual technique goes back farther than that, to special cumberbunds described in our more ancient texts. Army has ditched (pardon the pun) the cumberbund for a T-shirt and therein lies the big rub with "Breakdown".

Although I couldn't make any sense of the contradictions Army states to explain just what you need in terms of the shirt's properties, it's fairly obvious this works best with a T-shirt. Frankly, I don't wear T-shirts when I perform so this one was pretty much out the window for me at that point. Conceivably, you could do this with any overly long, tight-fitting, dark shirt, but I can't attest to that (my clothes fit as they should so that killed it for me). If you perform in situations where wearing a T-shirt is not that big a deal for you, "Breakdown's" big drawback, well, isn't, and you're good to go.

If you can figure out what Army is trying to show you. And good luck with that.

This is the second video of Army's I looked at, and it (he) suffers from the same problem here as in "Trespass": Army is simply not adequate at instructing. Once again, he's bobbing and weaving all over the place, in front of a stationary camera, making exaggerated hand movements that fall out of frame so many times you miss what he's trying to show you. Army cannot stay on point, rambling from one thought to the next in what amounts to a slurred delirium. Oh, you'll get the gist of what he's got going on, but little else. You're very much on your own coming up with some of the workings of this one and that's just not acceptable no matter the reasons or performer.

Long story short: pass this one up. There are other really slick ditches and pitches and the like out there (I use the one from Gregory Wilson's "On The Spot" videos, but that's just me) that are well taught, well thought-out, and workable in the real world. When it comes to Dan Army's "Breakdown", well, the term "none of the above" pops into my head.

Save your money.

"Breakdown" DVD by Dan Army
In a Blink: 1 Out of 10

Material: 2
It's an interesting idea -- an impromptu body servant -- but comes nowhere near living up to the hype: you're simply not getting what you should be getting. Still, it's something to think about if you can overcome the practicality issues.

Practicality: 1
Forget about doing this one in real world performances. I can't make heads or tails out of the requirements Army was trying to talk about, but at the minimum you'll need to be performing this one in a regular old t-shirt (you could, conceivably, get away with it using a long, tight shirt of any kind, but that's unproven). That pretty much eliminates it from the repertoire of most workers. Then there are the problems of retreiving the object easily (angles play a big part here). All in all, not practical for workers but probably okay showing off to friends and family.

Quality of Production: 1
Poor sound, poor video, no production values.

Quality of Instruction: 1
Army does an awful job explaining this one. The incoherency is painful at times, as is all the movements -- the weaving, the wild hand gestures (falling out of frame right when he's describing a move or two), all of it adds up to simply awful instruction. Prepare to work through a lot of this one on your own.

Presentation: 1
Okay, so this is essentially a sleight (of sorts) taught on disc. But no routines? No ideas? That's too intellectually lazy for my tastes.


Shane

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