Although an interesting premise of military school cadets occupying their campus in an effort to save it, 'Taps' offers no explanation for why so many would initially follow such a high-risk scheme to begin with, much less for why they would stick with it when it leads only to misery for the cadets. Also, the parental carping from the enraged adults who negotiate with Hutton in order to get him to stop becomes a little tiring, especially when more competent negotiators would seem to be in demand for such a potentially deadly scenario. Worse is that the ending attempts to meet the two extreme possible conclusions to the dilemma but ends up falling short on both counts. Hutton, however, gives a strong, convincing performance while Penn might have, but, as this was his first film, he clearly had not found his stage voice by this point and sounds like a croaky teen throughout. Overall, 'Taps' feels like a story that may have sounded good when it popped into the writer's head, but was not fleshed out with the development it needed.
Review of Taps
