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Danny Deckchair - Rhys Ifans, Miranda Otto, Justine Clarke, Jeff Balsmeyer

Threat advisory: Guarded - General risk of entertaining activities

Movie propaganda

When the long-awaited holiday goes south thanks to Trudy (Justine Clarke), his scheming girlfriend, Danny (Rhys Ifans), a cement truck driver, escapes his suburban prison and blasts into the skies in a garden chair tied with helium balloons. A mighty thunderstorm blows him clean off the map and spits him out far away over the lush green town of Clarence, where he rockets into the world of Glenda (Miranda Otto), the town's only parking cop.

While the media back home run riot with the story of his disappearance, Danny gets to reinvent himself in Clarence and in the adventure discovers a true soul mate in Glenda.

Fate catches up with him eventually: Danny's true identity is revealed and Trudy, now a 60 minutes celebrity, comes to Clarence to claim Danny and drag him back to Sydney. Danny however, is a changed man; he's discovered what it means to live and found a new self-worth. Saying farewell to Trudy, Danny makes a dynamic re-entry to Clarence, determined to win Glenda back again and embrace his new found zest for life.

Theatrical propaganda posters

Target demographic movie keyword propaganda

Film Australia comedy romance helium balloon identity

Persons of interest

Rhys Ifans .... Danny Morgan
Miranda Otto .... Glenda Lake
Justine Clarke .... Trudy
Rhys Muldoon .... Sandy Upman
Andrew Crabbe .... Kevin
Angus King .... Darren Keyhole
Jeff Balsmeyer .... Screenwriter
Jeff Balsmeyer .... Director

Cinematic intelligence sources

Studios and distributors:

20th Century Fox

Intelligence analyst

Special Agent Matti

Theatrical report

Ugh. Danny Deckchair is a low-grade Australian romantic comedy that could've been an episode of Seachange except that it's not that funny. It also relies on a secret identity (Danny Morgan's) which would be impossible in this age of instantaneous information dissemination. How is it that no-one thought to show a photo of Danny when they were searching for him? Obviously, it was only because Jeff Balsmeyer couldn't think of a way to make his story work so he cheated.

Rhys Ifans is good as the Little Aussie Battler™ and does a really good Aussie accent but you wonder why he was cast - surely it wasn't to make the film seem more attractive by including an International Star™ in the cast? Miranda Otto is pretty good but her character changes whenever Danny Morgan's character requires her to. That's also cheating on the part of Jeff Balsmeyer.

Justine Clarke and Rhys Muldoon are stuck with skit-level ciphers (I refuse to call them characters).

Danny Deckchair is based on the real-life event in which moron Larry Walters of Los Angeles decided to see if he could fly by tying helium-filled weather balloons to his chair, then ended up 3300 metres above the ground, floating over the LAX runways.