Slightly cliché, indulgently amusing, startlingly innocent:
Danny Deckchair runs like a stream that is somewhat shallow
but overall sweet. It’s one of those movies you describe as
“cute” before turning your mind to more serious matters,
like whether or not you want to add whipped cream to your post-film
frappucino. Don’t get me wrong, I very much enjoyed myself,
but it’s not exactly hard-hitting or even all that surprising.
Danny Deckchair follows the accidental adventures of
Danny Morgan (wiry Ifans of Notting Hill
and The Replacements fame), an Australian cement layer
whose stream of ideas are often more hare-brained than they are
ambitious. After overhearing his live-in girlfriend (Clarke)
describe him as “one of the little people,” Danny once
again takes to fantasy—this time with a small herd of helium
balloons and a lawn chair. Much to his friends’ and Trudy’s
amazement, this crazy contraption actually takes off, whisking Danny
away like a modern-day Dorothy. After weathering lightning storms
and firework explosions, Danny lands rather unceremoniously in the
backyard of a parking cop named Glenda (the lovely Otto
from LOTR) in a small town outside Sydney. The flying man
becomes an instant celebrity both in his hometown, where he is labeled
“Missing,” and the outback hamlet, where he makes a
new identity—and possibly new life—for himself.
This mysterious disappearance cannot remain unresolved forever,
though, as both a snooping journalist in the city (Muldoon)
and Glenda’s jealous ex-boyfriend try to flush Danny out of
his hiding place. There are, of course, the usual love conflicts
and triangles, but it’s such a sweet movie (not a word I like
to use often) that you can’t help smiling at it, even if it’s
just to think, “Ahh, yes, I recognize this part of the plot.”
While Danny Deckchair is director Jeff Balsmeyer’s
second movie, the majority of his film work lies in storyboard artistry
for such movies as Operation Dumbo Drop (c’mon, admit
it, you saw it), In the Army Now (this one too), Canadian
Bacon, and my own personal favorite, TV sci-fi series “Sliders.”
Considering these heavy projects should give you a pretty good idea
of what you’re getting into with DD. They’re
cinematographic appetizers, as I like to call them—that or
PG-13 teenie-boppers (I’m still working on it). Sexual material
is limited to innuendos only (every “love” scene cuts
off after the guy removes his shirt), and although it at first comes
off as a movie for adults, in reality DD is suitable for
all ages.
So while it’s not exactly the next award-winning epic, Danny
Deckchair is the movie to see on a lazy afternoon when you’re
not in the mood to think too much and “The Newlyweds”
are all reruns.
— Emily Younger