"Danny Deckchair"
Danny Morgan (Rhys Ifans) toils hard as a cement
worker for 50 weeks a year and dreams about flying
away to the far north of Australia and camping in the
wild. His live-in girlfriend Trudy (Justine Clarke) is
an ambitious (and very selfish) realtor on the fast
track. When she cancels his treasured vacation on a
false pretence, subbing with a family barbee, he
decides to amuse himself by tying a bunch of helium
filled balloons to an aluminum lawn chair. When his
invention shoots him thousands of feet into the sky a
legend is made in "Danny Deckchair."
Loosely based on the experience of Darwin Award winner
Larry Walters - the 1982 urban legend who reportedly
tied a bundle of weather balloons to his lawn chair
and launched himself three miles over Californian
airspace – "Danny Deckchair" takes these exploits as
the basis for a quirky romantic comedy.
Danny lives for his two weeks of bliss in the
wilderness. Just as he is preparing for his latest
camping trip, girlfriend Trudy announces that she must
work and his trip is no more. Now, Danny must amuse
himself and, during the aforementioned barbeque,
assembles his latest wacky invention. The
balloon-supported deckchair works all to well and,
before his astonished friends, he ends up floating
high above Sydney. Trudy tries to chase after him but
Danny drifts into the clouds and is, literally, lost
in space.
Many hours and many miles later Danny comes through
the clouds and discovers that he's not in Sydney
anymore. Suddenly, fireworks are going off all around
him and his balloons begin to pop. Without their
support he plummets to the earth, his fall broken by a
tree, and lands in the back yard of Glenda (Miranda
Otto). When the townsfolk come storming her door in
search of the UFO they saw in the sky, she tells them
that Danny is her old professor from college. Danny
introduces himself as Mr. Daniels and settles down to
enjoy the small town life of Clarence, Australia.
Meanwhile, back in Sydney, Trudy revels in the
15-minutes of fame that Danny's disappearance has
caused and is courted by local sports reporter Sandy
Upman (Rhys Muldoon). The Sydney officials mount a
search for the missing balloonist but, as time passes,
there is dwindling hope for Danny's survival.
Mr. Daniels, in the meantime, discovers that he is not
just at home in Clarence, he loves the place (and
Glenda, too). He gets involved in town politics and
helps a local, Big Jim Craig (Anthony Phelan), with
his parliamentary campaign. As Danny solicits votes
for Big Jim, he becomes increasingly engrossed in life
in the charming town and learns that he is becoming
quite fond of the people, especially pretty Glenda. In
more ways than one Danny Morgan becomes a local hero.
Former story board artist and second unit director
Jeff Balsmeyer takes a leap as the first time
writer/director for "Danny Deckchair." His creation
takes Larry Walters's urban legend and uses the wacky
premise to build his stranger-in-a-strange-land tale
that is a combination of "It's a Wonderful Life," "Mr.
Smith Goes to Washington" and "Local Hero." It's a
nice idea but the result is less than it could have
been.
There are two problems with "Danny Deckchair" that
cause it to fall short of my expectations for a
fantasy/romance. First, and unfortunately, Rhys Ifans
is miscast in the role of the Jimmy Stewart character.
The normally supporting character funnyman is called
upon to take on the romantic lead persona, putting his
usual mugging aside, but fails to put any life into
Danny Morgan. Ifans uses a wistful expression and
soulful gaze to show the character's depth and the
result is a wooden performance that fails to anchor
the film.
The other thing that detracts from the intent of
"Danny Deckchair" is the lack of quirky characters in
the town of Clarence. Sure, there is the occasional
oddball hanging around but the film really needs a
collection of idiosyncratic town folk to make you feel
you are in a magical land. "Local Hero" accomplished
this expertly and "Danny Deckchair" borrows liberally
from the older film without recreating its charm and
wit.
A plus for "Danny Deckchair" is the sweet, likable
performance provided by Miranda Otto as the town's
sole parking cop who immediately falls for the man who
fell to earth. Her gentle demeanor and winning smile
make Glenda the most compelling character on the
screen.
Techs are solid.
I give it a C+.
For more Reeling reviews visit www.reelingreviews.com
robin@reelingreviews.com
laura@reelingreviews.com
========== X-RAMR-ID: 38518 X-Language: en X-RT-ReviewID: 1312859 X-RT-TitleID: 1134490 X-RT-SourceID: 386 X-RT-AuthorID: 1488 X-RT-RatingText: C+
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews