Sunday Review: The Magdalen Martyrs (a Jack Taylor movie)

Compassionate attraction

By Morris Dean

Iain Glen seemed perfectly cast as the hard, conniving newspaperman Sir Richard Carlisle to whom it looked for a while that Lady Mary of Downton Abbey might be married. His mad ex-commanding officer Madoc Faulkner stole his episode of Ripper Street with his eloquent delivery of beautifully phrased language designed to seduce Inspector Reid's officer Drake into Faulkner's scheme to redress the ill treatment of ex-soldiers.

Nora-Jane Noone with
Frank O'Sullivan (Supt. Clancy)

    And this week I know by discovery of the Galway character Jack Taylor on Netflix that Iain Glen seemed made for this part too. Scruffily, boozily handsome, Jack attracts admirers male and female, young and old, friendly or at odds. Dismissed from Ireland's national police for slugging a government minister (who deserved it), he still has the respect and some affection of his former boss and colleagues; has won the strategic friendship of young Garda Kate Noonan (Nora-Jane Noone), who is not only an effective police officer, but sings in clubs at night, and is strikingly good-looking herself; and is sought out by young Cody Farraher (Killian Scott) who has already drafted business cards for Jack and himself to be partners in private investigation.

Scott Killian with Ian Glen

    In the 2011 TV movie, The Magdalen Martyrs, Jack is hired by the daughter of a former inmate of the infamous Magdalen Laundries to find the identity of a former nun, known only as Lucifer, who was notorious for taking pleasure in torturing the girls. The plot involves some deep self-discovery for Jack, who it turns out has a good deal more indirect personal connection with Lucifer than his investigative role. The story also illustrates Jack's sensitive withholding of hurtful information, as does another 2011 Jack Taylor TV movie, The Pikeman. In that movie, he discovers why a man's son was killed by a vigilante group, but rather than reveal that the circumstantial evidence was strong that the son had killed at least three young girls, in three different countries, tells the father that the vigilantes made a mistake. And in The Magdalen Martyrs, he withholds from the woman who hired him that her brother didn't only just share her abhorrence for Lucifer but had gone some steps toward meting out her retribution. That is, Jack doesn't just attract by personal charm, conscientious application, and effective ability, but by his compassionate sensitivity toward others.
    Only the first three Jack Taylor movies are available by instant download from Netflix; the next two are indicated to be available by DVD only. Unfortunately, our library doesn't have them, and I read in the local newspaper recently that the county commissioners have finally decided to cut the budget for the county library system. I have to suspect that Netflix would figure we'd be hooked and need to expand our subscription to include renting DVDs as well.
_______________
Copyright © 2013 by Morris Dean

Please comment