Movies
John McTiernan’s First Movie “Nomads” Is A Wandering Bit Of Potential
Nomads (1986) is a small budget thriller with a well-conceived premise but flawed execution.
“A French anthropologist specializing in nomadic groups moves to Los Angeles with his wife, and starts following a group of sinister street punks who seem to live and move around in a black van. But they aren’t what they seem.”
Director: John McTiernan
Writers: John McTiernan
Stars: Pierce Brosnan, Lesley-Anne Down, Anna Maria Monticelli, Adam Ant
Release: March 7, 1986
IMDB
Because rewatching all of the James Bond movies and ranking them isn’t enough, I have also embarked on the project of going through the directing filmography of John McTiernan. This endeavor of mine is inspired by the Blank Check podcast. They have begun deep diving into his career and each of his films, and after looking at his catalog, I realized I loved more than a handful of his directorial efforts.
Nomads (1986) is a small budget thriller with a well-conceived premise but flawed execution. According to IMDB, this project is McTiernan’s first official credit. No short films. No music videos. McTiernan sees his opportunity and makes an investigative, supernatural mystery with a roaming premise. Perhaps, looking back, McTiernan can admit that he tried fitting in too much and therefore steered his Hollywood debut off the tracks.
So what’s Nomad all about?
One angle of Nomads follows Jean Charles Pommier (Pierce Brosnan) as a French anthropologist whose career has featured word travel studying nomadic societies in different environments. After years on the road, Jean Charles and his wife Veronique (Anna Maria Monticelli) had decided to settle down for a spell in Los Angeles, CA.
The happiness of new home-owning is fleeting when Jean Charles notices that a group of punk street rats begin loitering near their residence. After some vandalization, Jean Charles begins following this group and discovers that their actions are as disconcerting as their look. The Frenchman must find ways to deal with these city ghouls before they overtake him both physically and mentally.
The additional storyline follows Dr. Eileen Flax (Lesley-Anne Down), a newcomer to Los Angeles looking to get her feet under her in her unfurnished apartment. We meet Eileen in a hospital, where a ranting, bloody and erratic Jean Charles Pommier is strapped to a bed refusing to accept medical treatment. Eileen attempts to calm down her patient but the normal order of operations gets destroyed when Jean Charles whispers sweet craziness into her ear.
Eileen starts to feel strange and becomes desperate to try and figure out what’s happening to her. She begins to put together certain puzzle pieces and connects her random hallucinations to the final moments of Jean Charles’ life. Nomads traverses between the two stories looking to blend plot points and themes.
Is it successful in its mission? Eh….No. But McTiernan tried really hard.
Nomads has an interesting premise. The idea of nomads in different environments haunting Jean Charles after he’s settled down into a cushy professor job in Los Angeles can be the baseline for something. There is a story involving Jean Charles yearning to get back on the path but those who he left are preventing him from being his true self.
Alas, Nomads doesn’t achieve its true potential. It’s a movie that needed a bit more tightening in the script. To perhaps no one’s surprise, McTiernan never wrote one of his own movies again. In fact, Nomads is the only movie he has a writing edit for.
McTiernan is known for action splendor, and if you are looking for Nomad for adrenaline, you’ll surely be disappointed.
But let me tease you.
There is a scene on top of a building near the end of the Nomads that undoubtedly inspires one of the most iconic scenes in any McTiernan film. Jean Charles is on the roof with his wife Veronique. They are trying to overcome the struggles they’ve been through behind them, but Pommier’s ease of mind is curtailed when one of the Nomads appears next to him. Jean Charles takes this ghost-esq terror and flips them over the edge of this skyscraper in an attempt to kill him.
Does this shot look familiar to anyone?
Let me help you out.
The same shot. The same angle. The bad guy is about to be splashed on cement. Hans Gruber is surprised In Die Hard and you see the shock on his face. In Nomads, it’s an eerie smile of self gratification.
This right here is why it’s fun to go through filmographies. You can see the connective strings. The shots from a lesser seen movie brought into a blockbuster. It’s rewarding.
Someone who has had a rewarding career is Pierce Brosnan, but it did not start in the late 1980s. It’s early in Brosnan’s career and he is appearing in numerous television shows, movies and mini-series. This is his first leading role in any feature film, and damn did he go for it. Enthusiasm is oozing out of his messy 1980s hairdo and no one can deny that he went gung-ho when action is called. Not sure whether or not viewers and critics saw a future James Bond when watching Brosnan for the first time, but it’s impossible not to watch Nomads now and not see what the future holds for Brosnan.
Nomads is not a good movie, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t nuggets to pick at. You have Pierce Brosnan dialing it up with an atrocious French accent accompanied by McTiernan trying things out that he’ll bring into future movies with a more refined look. Nomads isn’t a finished project, yet there are still morsels worth noting in the back of your mind.
Nomads is not available for streaming, so if you want to trip out for roughly 90 minutes and be both confused and compelled, give some rental service $1.99 to watch Nomads.
If you want a good movie, allow me to advise you to rent John McTiernan’s next film….Predator (1983)!
STANKO RATING: D
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