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  Specs
  • Widescreen 1.85:1
  • 16:9 Enhanced
  • Dual Layer ( )
  Languages
  • English: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
  Subtitles
    English - Hearing Impaired
  Extras
    Danny Deckchair (Rental)
    20th Century Fox/20th Century Fox Home Entertainment . R4 . COLOR . 97 mins . PG . PAL

      Feature
    Contract

    It’s rough when you’re one type of person and your partner is some very different type. This is Danny’s dilemma with his girlfriend Trudy. He is but a humble concrete man, mixing it for his builder mates. She is a hot real estate agent working her way up through the ranks. When a chance to sell sports news reader Sandy Upman a home comes along, she takes it instead of going on their holiday together. As she and Danny become ever-distant from each other and after a huge fight, Danny decides to go on holiday alone. Unfortunately, they’ve planned a barbeque and Danny stays, but with a notion of tying helium balloons to a deckchair to see if it will fly.

    It does.

    And Danny ends up lost somewhere north of Sydney in the countryside, landing heavily in Glenda’s backyard. In Clarence, the small country town nearby, he becomes somewhat of a local celebrity and can finally be himself and try some new ideas. The townspeople all fall in love with him, but elsewhere there are people still searching for him and it’s therefore only a matter of time until he is discovered.

    This is a simple film with a poignant message about the importance of the individual and living your life rather than becoming part of the machine. Performances from Rhys Ifans (with an uncannily familiar Australian accent) and Miranda Otto are great with a genuine chemistry between the two that helps the film along immeasurably. While the supporting cast do a great job (and have fun hamming it up a lot of the time) the film without doubt, belongs to these two.

      Video
      Audio
      Extras
    Contract

    The video quality here is almost faultless, with only some mild grain at times (particularly outdoor night shots) ruining a perfect transfer. However, this doesn’t really affect us much and will most likely go unnoticed by most. There are no artefacts, at least that I could detect and the picture quality is quite sharp. Shadow detail fluctuates only once or twice, usually yielding details fairly well. Otherwise, a beautiful clean picture, which we should expect from a film released earlier this year.

    The Dolby Surround 5.1 does a great job with the dialogue, though it has little else to do surround-wise throughout. Dialogue is all fairly clear, although there seem to be some later dubs that don’t synch with mouth movement entirely, though this is only apparent a couple of times. Sound effects are pretty much invisible, though some crowd scenes in the surrounds are good, as is the short fireworks scene.

    There aren’t any extras included in this rental, and even the main menu is a very sedate affair and looks like a standard generic Fox title page with the addition of the film poster.

    Overall this is a fun film and while not overly challenging, is in fact a sweet romance and a warm story about finding your place in the scheme of things. Performances are great, the location is beautiful and the photography is subtle in telling the differences between city and country. As a rental I can safely say it’s absolutely worth checking out and it shall be interesting to see what sort of extras the retail release will bring.


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  •   And I quote...
    "This simple and effective film disguises its soulful message within a sweet romance and is well worth checking out."
    - Jules Faber
      Review Equipment
    • DVD Player:
          Nintaus DVD-N9901
    • TV:
          Sony 51cm
    • Receiver:
          Diamond
    • Speakers:
          Diamond
    • Surrounds:
          No Name
    • Audio Cables:
          Standard Optical
    • Video Cables:
          Standard Component RCA
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