Nomads (1986) is the John McTiernan film that made Arnold Schwarzenegger say, “I vant dat guy fur Preduhter.” Is Nomads that good or was Schwarzenegger high on wiener schnitzel?
Since McTiernan followed Nomads with one of cinema’s all-time greatest hat tricks (Predator, Die Hard and The Hunt for Red October), Schwarzenegger was likely onto something…other than testosterone and dianabol.
Nomads
Nomads is about a French anthropologist who moves to Los Angeles with his wife to start a quiet life of teaching at college. Yet, he becomes obsessed with following around a group of punk rockers who are trickster spirits from Eskimo mythology. All of this is revealed through flashbacks via a woman the anthropologist transferred his soul to at a hospital.
Makes total sense when you think about it.
John McTiernan wrote the screenplay, but it is based on a story from Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, who tried to have a weirder name than Ursula K. Le Guin and almost succeeded.
Nomads is a kissing cousin of Wolfen. Both movies import ancient native folklore into modern city settings. Wolfen is the better movie because it follows a more sensible format. Plus, Albert Finney is a powerhouse of world-weary detective on the verge of allowing his fine-tuned mind to be dulled by sweatpants and donuts.
Yet, McTiernan manages to craft an interesting film. He displays a style that evokes snippets of Michael Mann and maybe De Palma when he goes into full dream mode in a movie like Raising Cain. It all ends up a bit disjointed. The viewer will periodically mutter, “Huh?” Nevertheless, McTiernan creates a fairy-tale atmosphere that can mostly accommodate all the events that happen in Nomads.
Nomads Cast
Pierce Brosnan headlines the film as the French anthropologist. If you need a French character in your film, you might as well pick an Irish actor. It’s no more odd of a decision than anything else that happens in the movie. It appears Brosnan can speak French. As for his French accent when speaking English…is it good or is it bad?
Honestly, aren’t French accents simply bad in general?
Brosnan is fine in the role. He mostly needs to obsessively follow people to 1980s rock music while looking dashing. No problem. Brosnan can do that in his sleep.
Lesley-Anne Down (not to be confused with Lesley Ann Warren) plays a doctor who treats Brosnan when he is brought into the emergency room to scream in French at the beginning of the film.
Lesley does the heavy lifting in Nomads. She needs to try to make sense of everything that happens. Plus, she did not have a good time working on the film. McTiernan was allegedly hostile toward her. He did not want Lesley for the role. He wanted a more Hitchcock blond-type. Lesley also criticized the film, believing it should have been more overtly supernatural.
The Nomads
The nomads are made up of English musician Adam Ant, Mary Woronov (Chopping Mall), Frank Doubleday (Escape From New York), American musician Josie Cotton and Hector Mercado, who could double for the villain of Jean Claude Van-Damme’s Cyborg.
Character actress Frances Bay (In the Mouth of Madness) also pops into the movie as a nun in one of Nomad’s numerous head-scratching moments. Alan Autry (Southern Comfort) briefly appears, as well.
Anna Maria Monticelli (Nomads) plays Brosnan’s wife. She was in a relationship with McTiernan during filming, which means men who have burlap-like skin are Monticelli’s type. She also needs to do a bit of heavy lifting. Essentially, Lesley shows up in Monticelli’s bed one morning and says she is living Brosnan’s life through flashbacks.
Monticelli then needs to simply go along with that like it is completely reasonable. We need an Academy Award category for performers thrust into roles like this. Playing that kind of part must be harder than playing Gandhi.
Yes Or Nomads?
Nomads is a tough film to rate. For everything it does right, it does something wrong. Yet, it keeps a person’s attention throughout. Part of this is that it sticks to the magic runtime of 90 minutes, which keeps it moving at a pace that doesn’t give the viewer a lot of lulls to start thinking too much.
Likewise, McTiernan keeping things pared to the bone prevents any of the performers from looking too bad. None of them are hung out to dry by having to act too hard. They can simply show up, hit their marks, say their lines and move on to the next puzzling moment. Nomads also gave McTiernan a chance to practice that shot in Die Hard where Hans Gruber falls to his death.
Gerard Depardieu was originally considered for Brosnan’s role. That would not have worked at all. Depardieu does not have the flash required for Nomads. Looking at the film this way makes it apparent that the movie gets by purely on style and Brosnon’s good looks. Nomads is almost completely surface level, only barely scratching the depths of a potentially rich subject. The transfer of ancient folklore to a modern culture could be highly interesting.
Instead, McTiernan is content to let the viewer deal with the difficulties via dream logic. Then he throws in a somewhat punchy ending to leave on a high note as he gallivants out the door to go work with Schwarzenegger. Hard to argue with those kind of results, even if McTiernan did flame out and end up a Hollywood nomad himself.
