Pierce Brosnan will always be best remembered for his tenure as James Bond, but one of his most underrated action movies also proves he would have made a great Jack Reacher too. The suave Irishman got his start in television, becoming something of an international sensation playing the starring role in Remington Steele.
During the run of Remington Steele, Brosnan had a brush with the role that would eventually make him a household name, but he was unable to secure the James Bond part in 1987. However, he would eventually don the tuxedo a few years later in 1995, launching a successful four-movie tenure as 007.
In the years between the cancellation of Remington Steele, and Brosnan’s time as James Bond, the actor began to transition into movie roles. Across a handful of movies, the actor established himself as a legitimate action star, while also playing a wide range of other parts, including comedy and science fiction.
Movies like The Lawnmower Man and Mrs. Doubtfire were not only big hits, but proved that Brosnan was box office gold. Bond was the pinnacle of his action movie career, but Brosnan had already appeared in a film that showed off his action hero chops. Brosnan was a perfect Bond, but he would have made a great Jack Reacher too.
Pierce Brosnan’s Taffin Character Is Reminiscent Of Jack Reacher
A Hero Who Helps Out The Little Guy
Lee Child’s Jack Reacher debuted in the novel Killing Floor in 1997, and he has gone on to appear in nearly 30 novels since then. Noted for his impressive physique and strict moral code, the тιтular character travels the country and often finds himself taking on dangerous criminals and shady operators who threaten average people.
The episodic nature of Reacher’s stories has helped to make the novels bestsellers, and there are an endless number of adventures for the heavily-muscled hero. Though Pierce Brosnan’s onscreen personality isn’t quite exactly like Reacher, his starring role in 1988’s Taffin showed that he could easily have played the part at some point in his career.
Based on the Lyndon Mallet books, Taffin tapped Brosnan to play the lead role as a debt collector who uses his martial arts skills to stop a greedy developer from building a dangerous chemical plant in town. Like Reacher, Taffin is a no-nonsense operator who is not only able to out-fight his opponents, but often outsmarts them as well.
Alan Ritchson plays Jack Reacher on the Amazon Prime Video TV series.
Taffin does differ from Reacher, and he is more of a loose-canon who is willing to do anything to save the day. Unbound by such a strict moral code, Taffin is a bit more cynical and down-to-earth, and certainly doesn’t have the same optimism as Lee Child’s books, or the wildly popular Jack Reacher TV series on Amazon Prime Video.
Overall, the Pierce Brosnan vehicle wasn’t a very strong cinematic introduction for the future action star and critics were generally unhappy. Though the full financial picture for the movie isn’t clear, Box Office Mojo lists a worldwide gross of only $159,000.
Taffin Is Way Better Than Its 41% Rotten Tomatoes Score Suggests
Critics Didn’t Understand What The Movie Was Going For
Characters like Taffin or Jack Reacher are actually a dime-a-dozen in the literary world, and they hearken back to hard-boiled heroes like Sam Spade and Travis McGee. However, those characters don’t always translate well to the big screen, and Taffin‘s film adaptation was not well-received overall. Critics were harsh on Brosnan’s early starring role, but they mostly missed the point.
One critique was that the film was dour, and that there was an overall cynicism in each part of the story. Taffin isn’t a fun movie in concept, and it is less of a mile-a-minute action film and more of a thriller in its execution and themes. It isn’t perfect, but it’s better than a sub-50% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Pierce Brosnan’s performance is very strong, and he isn’t the same unflappable hero he was in Remington Steele.
For one thing, Pierce Brosnan’s performance is very strong, and he isn’t the same unflappable hero he was in Remington Steele. Many were off-put by Brosnan’s performance, but that’s because they were expecting Remington Steele and not Taffin. The latter is a complex anti-hero, who isn’t afraid to bend any rule that prevents him from succeeding.
Action movies in the ’80s were moralistic in their own way, but Taffin eschews all that. It feels more like a film from the gritty 1970s, where the rules were flexible, and the characters had complicated morality. Pierce Brosnan was the best part of Taffin, and it shows his versatility before he was typecast by his tenure as James Bond.
