Review of Taffin (1988) by Eric M — 04 Mar 2009

Something about an accent from anywhere in the UK, often has the effect of lending a greater sense of respectability and credibility to a movie...

That happens here in Taffin.

The story is ridiculously simple and starts out with a near misfire as the viewer is subjected to possibly, one of the most horrifically choreographed "fight scenes" in over 100 years of cinema.

TAFFIN quickly redeems itself by introducing a band of characters into the mix, who are colorful and interesting.

Well... check that - - Upon a bit of retrospection, I realize that the only thing about this crew I found interesting was their accents.

That's where the illusion of "credibility" I was talking about comes in. I couldn't look away! I found myself watching more and more of Taffin, just so I could hear more of those accents! More of those clever "turns of phrase"!

TAFFIN didn't bother examining or developing any sort of character development. In fact... they kind of tried to work into some promising "good vs evil"... "Faith vs. Force"... stuff into the story about halfway through.... but suddenly decided not to bother examining or exploring it to any great length (which ended up being just another disappointment for me).

Brosnan did all alright. He's certainly a likable actor and he plays the roguish Mark Taffin here very well. He's nicely complimented by the unfortunately named (but otherwise beautiful, in a trashy, 80's sort of way...) Alison Doody.

For me.. the worst part of Taffin, was that after watching 1hr and 20 minutes of a film in which there seemed to be very little going on... the writer/director suddenly decided to cram a whole bunch of stuff into the last 10 minutes.

This only served to mess up the pacing by making the film seem disjointed and poorly thought out.

Watch it for the "accents" and the beautiful scenery...