Taffin

A confused and unexciting thriller set in a small Irish coastal town, where the hero Taffin (Brosnan) earns his keep as a debt collector who's handier with his fists than with the legal paperwork. When it is revealed that a newly built access road will serve a proposed chemical plant, Taffin at first refuses to help the action committee set up by his former teacher (McAnally). But when the crooked businessmen behind the scheme, who have the local councillors in their pockets, start roughing up OAPs, he agrees to act as the protesters' paid heavy. The character of Taffin is too complex for Brosnan's limited acting talents, though he's good in the action scenes and displays his coarse good looks to some advantage. Also unconvincing are Taffin's passionate affair with an independent and worldly-wise barmaid (Doody), and his father-son conflict with former mentor McAnally. Struggling hard against the script's stock elements, Megahy delivers some effective bursts of action without ever generating any real tension or involvement.