Random I-Tunes Song of The Moment: I've Got a Theory / Bunnies / If We're Together by Buffy The Vampire Slayer, et al.

When I was a young laddie, we didn't have one-trick DVDs. As a magic creator/seller myself, I've struggled with this concept. I've come to the conclusion that in order for a one-trick DVD to have any value, it really needs to be a 'product' that 'comes with' an 'instructional' DVD. For example, Smashed by Jay Sankey. For $30.00 you get the 'gimmick' you need and rather than a booklet for instructions, you get a DVD... That makes sense to me.

'Clutch' sold as a single trick DVD, just makes no sense to me. Even at the relatively reasonable price of $20.00, it's still a bit of a mystery why people would rather by one trick for $20.00 when they could have 10 to 15 tricks for only a few dollars more.

Putting aside my own bias about the method of delivery here, let's look at the trick itself. This trick is all about over-proving how fair you are. The entire presentation by Oz Pearlman (who is a very talented magician) is basically, look how fair I am. I won't touch the deck. Look at my hands; they're empty. Look; nothing up my sleeves, etc.

He talks, in the explanation, about how over-the-top the reactions are from audiences, but in the live performances, I just didn't see those types of reactions. The effect is that the spectator picks a card, shuffles the deck, puts it in the box, puts the box in his shirt pocket. The magic reaches in a plucks out the selection out of the closed box in the pocket of the spectator.

This is nothing new in concept. Oz has taken a couple of basic card moves/techniques that we all know and turned it into a presentation piece. This is certainly the kind of thing that plays well close up or on stage, and it is a good trick, and it might even be worth $20.00 bucks if you end up adding it to your act, but even so, it's not like this trick is suddenly going to put you on the map and allow you to increase your fee. The DVD does cover the effect and various moves in depth, but it's almost as if they thought, 'hey we'd better add this section and that section to make this DVD look like it has a lot of material.'

It's a simple routine that can be done with a borrowed deck, and it plays bigger than it is for sure, but not worthy of a single DVD release. Were this one of many routines in a book or DVD, I would be talking about how clever this trick is and how it's one of many clever (hopefully) ideas on the DVD/Book.

As it stands, there are plenty of better ways to spend $20.00 bucks. You could go to McDonald's 4 times, for example.

The trick is good. No question there. But the product loses points for overall value.

Final Verdict:
2.5 Stars with a Stone Status of rubble.