No, OK, stop. She's using
nothing to pick those. She's not using a lockpick. She's just pulling at them,
and then they come off. Hey, guys, I'm Matt Johnson, and I'm an escape artist
for about 30 years now. Today, you and I are
going to be looking at movie and TV escapes, and we're going to be judging
how real they actually are. Back in Phillips' car, why? They think we're idiots. Picking-a-set-of-handcuffs escape is used all the time by escape artists. These are standard police
regulation handcuffs here, probably double-locking. So when you put them on, if
you don't double-lock it, the ratchet can still push in
and could cause a lot of pain. That to me looks like a blade
from a hacksaw or something. You could use that to
get out of handcuffs. There are three ways to get out
of handcuffs that I know of. One is with a key. You could actually get
out of a pair of handcuffs by fashioning a key with
something like a paper clip. And then a third way is
what's called a shim, which is a flat piece of
steel, which he's using here. He's putting it between
the cuff and the ratchet and sliding it in there. And essentially, where this goes in, here, you can see that little
space where it goes in. Well, if I lock that, those teeth are hid in a little lever here that's got teeth on it,
which is sprung, right? So when you push that
in, that little lever goes click, click,
click, click, like that. But because the teeth
are serrated one way, now I can't pull it back out. So if I put a flat piece
of metal in that hole and push it in and then just
push the cuff in one time, it'll then slide out because
the flat piece of metal is between the serrated
teeth and the little ratchet. He's in the back of a police car. He's stressing out probably,
but what you have to do as an escape artist, you have
to lower your heart rate, calm your nerves, and just
focus on the job at hand. I mean, he looks pretty calm. See, it's taken him 10
seconds or so to get out. I mean, you can get out of
handcuffs a lot faster than that. The record is a guy from Italy called Alexis Arts, in 0.9 seconds. However, when you're put in things like, they're behind your back, so you've got to find where you're at. Plus he's jammed up against
a seat and seat-belted in. He hasn't got a lot of room, right? So I would actually say 10
seconds in that situation, under duress, is actually pretty fast. I would actually give
this a high 9 or a 10. Let's try and get these ropes loose. We've got to get to Marcus
before the Nazis do. If Indie moved his left
arm even a little bit more, that thing would slide
right off his shoulder. I would've personally
liked to have seen in this, like when Houdini did the
100-foot-rope tie challenge, he'd be on a chair just like this, but the rope would be
wrapped around his neck and under his arms and through his legs. Rope escapes, as a rule, require a lot more pure strength than, say, doing a handcuff escape, right? Because a handcuff escape is
really not using strength. It's using dexterity. You've got to manipulate your body to get out of a rope
or something like that. Henry: What am I looking for? Indiana: My lucky charm. Try and burn through the ropes. I don't know how you're getting your hand from here up to that rope. I don't know how fast that fire's going to
burn through that rope. I've done upside-down straitjacket escapes where I've had the rope on fire, and, you know, I'm 220
pounds, hanging upside down. There's a lot of weight on that rope. It takes a while for that
rope to burn through. It depends what kind
of rope it is as well. If you go to, like, a
hardware store and buy rope, a lot of it is a plastic.
The fibers are plastic. If this was a plastic
rope, then it might work. It might go through, but
obviously a hemp rope or a cotton rope or something, it's going to take,
especially a rope that thick, I don't think you're going to
burn through that very easily. I think I can get these ropes off. Come on. That was the only part
of this escape to me that kind of looked legitimate, is his hands were tied with a rope. If they were tied legitimately around, cinched up to my hands, it would take you some time to get out. It's not physically impossible. You've got to kind of deform
your hand a little bit, crush it down, get it
closer together, you know? You're going to get
some rope burns from it. If somebody's going to tie
your wrists with a rope, a good tip is -- how
can I demonstrate this? Imagine this is a rope. Imagine if that's put around
my wrists like this, OK? A good tip is, if somebody's
coming in to tie my wrist, is to just bring the pinky in like this and grab an extra bit. Because if this now goes around and is locked on top of my
hands, if I just let that go, I've got enough slack to get my hand out. Look at the rope. The rope's, like, this thick. It is difficult to tie a thicker rope as tight as it is a thin rope. The chances of getting
out of that kind of rope are going to be a lot better than getting out of a smaller rope. Because it's around the
thickest part of his leg, here. So if it's around the
thickest part of your leg, it can go over the thinnest part. Not like if a rope's tied
here, around the thinnest part, it can't go over the thickest
part of your hand, right? I actually might have to give it a 1, because I really think they could have done a lot more homework to make it look a lot more realistic. If ever you're in a situation like this, right, heaven forbid, you've got to assess the
situation around you first. So, for example, here, the immediate thought is to
try and get that zip tie off, but maybe the radiator's loose and maybe the paper that's up there is held up by drawing pins and he could pull one out
and use that to cut the zip. I think what I'd be looking
for in this situation is maybe something that I could put
through that I could turn. That's going to put a lot
of pressure on the wrist, but at some point, something has to give. It is possible, using a
technique, to get zip ties off. This one is slightly different because his hands aren't
zip-tied together. He's zip-tied to the radiator. These aren't what law
enforcement would use. It's pretty small. It sounds weird, but the zip tie's got to
be as tight as it can. If you look at my chest and
my body and look at my arms, they're wider than this zip tie, right? So if I were to bring these hands down against my chest, here, with force and with conviction,
and as I come to here, I kind of push my shoulder
blades at the back, I push them together. It'll just snap the zip tie. I personally would never get
out of a zip tie like that, but having said that, he is
attached to the radiator, so I don't know that force would work. I'm maybe going to give it a 6. Picking a lock is not easy. People ask me how I learned to pick locks. This is a practice lock. You can see it's clear, so
you can see the pins inside. Because essentially, when
a key goes in a lock, it just moves, all those
little indentations in the key move the pins into the
right, correct format, and then it will open the lock, right? So if I wanted to pick this lock, so you'd need a pick and
you'd need a pry bar, because a pry bar puts pressure
on the lock as you pick it, so that when you get the pins
in the right place, it opens. That is exactly what she's doing there. Now, it looks like she's using a hairpin or maybe two hairpins. Whether or not the hairpin
would be strong enough as a pry bar to put pressure on the lock, essentially the technique
she's using there to open that lock is legitimate. She's pulling it along the pins to try and rake them into the right position. And what happens is, by
putting that pressure on, as soon as a pin goes into
the right position, it holds, and then you go in, you
rake, another one holds, and that's always moving
until, click, it goes. I would actually give this a
rating of, like, 8 out of 10. The only reason I wouldn't
give it a 10 is because I don't know if those
tools would do that job, but she's certainly using
them in the right way, and the technique's right. When that timer hits 0, a tank full of flesh-eating
piranhas will fall from ... They're putting leg
cuffs on, chains, locks. I mean, this is all pretty standard fare. Those cuffs look strong. The chains are good,
strong chain, padlocks. [buzzer rings] First of all, if we stop there, you notice she was standing on a platform, and then the platform
released and she drops in. I would never do it that
way because I'd be worried about cracking my head
or something like that. So, I use a tank that's 10 feet high, about that height, but very narrow. And so what I do is climb
a ladder all chained up and then kind of inch myself to the edge, and get down into the water on my elbows so that when I do go under, I've not got a chance of hitting my head. No, OK, stop. She's using nothing to pick those. There's nothing. I can't see anything. She's not using a lockpick. She's just pulling at them,
and then they come off. Houdini, when he used to
do the underwater escape, they would stand by with a
sledgehammer to break the glass. When I was in New York getting
ready to perform on Broadway and I had an accident and I
blacked out and I drowned, it was quicker for them
to shatter the tank with a sledgehammer than
it was to use the keys. What he's using there is, like, a bar. I don't think that's going to do the job, because that glass is
going to be really thick. She does hold her breath there
for about a minute, I think. That's certainly not out of the way. The average person can hold their breath, you know, 30 seconds to a
minute and a half, 90 seconds. If I go in a swimming
pool and I just relax and don't move, I can hold my breath for about four and a half, five minutes, because my heart rate lowers
and it's not burning oxygen because I'm completely relaxed. But if I go in a tank of water and chain and lock myself
up in front of 1,000 people and they lock the lid, you better believe my
heart rate goes so high and burns my oxygen in, like, 20 seconds. The actual record for holding breath, I believe, is about 24 minutes. An actual apnea hold,
without purging oxygen, just [inhales] and holding, for a man is about 11 minutes. For a lady, it's about eight minutes. Look how much water is coming
out of that little fish tank. That's way too much water. There's a dude up top
there with a big hose and a pump or something. So, if you're in a venue
doing an underwater escape, one of the things they
will always say to you is, "Is the water going to go over the top? Because it's going to wreck the stage. It's going to wreck the
cameras, the cables." You might have a bit of an
overflow for dramatic effect, but you would never, ever
have that much water. [crowd screaming] Whoever thought of this is a sick sadist! [crowd cheers] This bit's cool because
this is the classic, they appear at the back of the audience behind the judges, right? Is this legitimate? Absolutely. Could it be done the way
they've done it in the show? I don't think so. Maybe, like, a 4, I guess, on a premise of a performance. Take me halfway around. The coffin looks like a magic prop, right? Nobody's going to buy that
there's absolutely nothing -- "There's nothing wrong with this coffin! It doesn't have any
trapdoors of any kind." I mean, it looks like a magic prop, which you would expect from this show. I will become my dead father's body as I am lowered into his grave. Buried alive is a classic plot in escapes. You've got to get out of the coffin, however means that happens. But then you've still got to get through 5 or 6 feet of dirt, and you've got to escape before
you get out of the coffin. There was a magician,
Joe Burrus, from the US, who did a buried-alive escape and got out. But then a few years later on Halloween, he did another version of it and died. Because what he did was he'd
put 5 feet of dirt on top, but then he put a foot
or 2 feet of concrete, poured concrete. Well, David Blaine's was different. He was in a clear box with clear glass, I think, on top, so people could see him. So there wasn't any chance
of something collapsing. Keep it together, Buster,
and spin this back around. Oh, my God, the card! The card! This is why we have this rap. This is what all this beard and wax and all these tattoos is trying to dispel, is that myth that we're all
kids-party magicians and hacks. I mean, would you hire
me for your kid's party? I don't think so. Buster is the perfect assistant for this, although I don't think the character means for it to go wrong. You very rarely see my assistants. My assistants are in the wings, making sure that I don't die. So, people that know CPR. People that have got extra
keys if something goes wrong, sledgehammers, medics, things like that. And we've had to use them. I mean, for escape, you'd
have to give it a 1. But for comedy value, you'd have to give it
a 15 or a 20 out of 10. Can you confirm that the straps are tight? The way he's got the
straitjacket on right now is not a way that any escape artist would ever wear a straitjacket. The arms have to be crossed with each wrist under the elbow, right? So that when it's
tightened up on the back, there is no way you can physically get the arm over the elbow. Do you know what? I'm
not saying escape artists don't maybe hide keys. I know Houdini, people said he hid keys and things around. I would never put a key in my mouth, mainly because when I'm physically moving, it would be very easy for
me to swallow that key and choke on the thing,
whether it's an extra key or, if you're using a
lockpick, an extra lockpick. You've got to have an out. When I was on "Britain's Got Talent," I dropped a lockpick while I was trying to get out of a head tank full of water, and I had to use the
bar to break the lock. Michael: I cannot tell
you how I plan to escape, other than by using magic. You know, there's a lot of physicalness to getting out of a straitjacket. You've got to thrash around. You know, you get cuts, you get bruises. It hurts. I've burned myself. I've
bruised myself. I've cut myself. That writhing around on
the ground is pretty much, you know, how we do it. Straitjacket escape is difficult. Houdini used to do the straitjacket escape in every city that he ever did a show at. There are tips and tricks that we use to try and make that job a little easier, but people have dislocated
limbs and broken limbs and all kinds of things trying to do it. So, is it true that if you can't get out, you don't want anyone to help you? I will get out. Oh, yes, I will. Not accepting help if you get stuck is not the way a professional
escape artist does things. I always have a team on standby, and I've had to use them more than once. I've drowned twice. I'm giving him a 2 because
he's in the straitjacket and he's put chains on,
but I mean, you know, he's not even wearing
the straitjacket right. Maybe a magic word or two, and then I'll be gone. One of the first tricks I ever got shown when I was a kid was something like that, where he's doing the ball thing, right? So he's going one, two, and
like this, and it's gone. So now look how his hand is. He's holding the ball, but
it's classic misdirection, because if I just go like
this and don't look up at it, when I put it in this hand,
you see me put it there. But if my eyes are following the object, that means your eyes are
following the object. Distraction for something
like this, 100% important. Gone. That quick, without
the guard feeling that, I would say is nigh on impossible. Maybe if you set off a
firecracker, you know, or a bomb, it might have worked,
but just dropping a ball, and me going for it,
that switch, that quick, pretty much impossible, considering that these are
real chains, real padlocks. But if you look at the cuff
on his right wrist there, there's actually no padlock in this. It's essentially a key
that goes in, turns, and it's all built into the actual cuff. So these are an old-style cuff. So the leg irons here are
all built into the leg iron. So he's got to unlock the iron and then put it around the other guy. When he puts it around the other guy, it will instantly lock when
he squeezes it together. So actually it wouldn't take as much time as I initially thought. I still don't think he's got enough time. I'm going to say maybe a 5. As long as he picked
it here and opened it, he could snap it around the other person. Now, I've done a lot of escapes where I'm hanging upside down. I've never done escapes the right way up. It looks like she's
maybe tied by the wrists with rope or handcuffs or
something that's hooked up. I couldn't lift up a bag of sugar, never mind a 6-foot-2,
bald-headed, muscly guy. [laughing] OK, I mean, listen, have you ever tried to get a key in your front-door
lock when you come home and it's nigh on impossible? That kind of position, to then even lift your
legs is really hard, unless you have really good core muscles. So, I have to use my hands against my legs to kind of walk myself up there. I'd maybe give this a 5, I'm going to say. My favorite escape in a movie or TV would have to be something
called the water-cube trap, which was actually in the
"Saw" series of horror movies. And essentially it was a little cube, and when the guy woke up,
his head was in this cube. There was two pipes coming in attached to water gallon cylinders, and then the water started coming in and filling up slowly, right? And I had a very, very
similar-looking device, which was a box attached
to a metal straitjacket hanging from chains. And I was all padlocked and chained in, and then they filled it with
water and locked the box. Hey, thanks so much for watching, guys. I'm Matt Johnson, and if you want to watch other videos like this, make sure you go ahead
and click right here.
