Nomads

Nomads is style over substance.

John McTiernan as writer and director delivers this mid 1980s surreal and supernatural thriller with LA punks and a thumping rock score.

The film opens with Dr Flax (Lesley-Anne Down) a tired accident & emergency doctor who is called into treat a deranged French anthropologist Jean Charles Pommier (Pierce Brosnan.) He has only moved to Los Angeles with his wife recently where they have been harrassed by punks and rockers.

Jean Charles dies but not before biting Dr Flax in the neck. She does not become a vampire but she gets his memories and experiences into her head. We are not sure that we are reliving Dr Flax experiences or Jean Charles.

Dr Flax seeks out Jean Charles's wife who is very confused as to why she knows so much about her husband. Meanwhile one of Dr Flax's colleague gets a phrase that Jean Charles was ranting about deciphered.

The phrase comes from the Innuat. It refers to a band of nomadic spirits who live place to place in human form. These punks and rockers might be the nomads intent on evil.

It seems Jean Charles and his wife had been constantly on the run from these nomads. A nun warned him to keep on running and hiding, he might still be able to evade them. He needs to leave LA.

The film is an incoherent mess. It does have a great visual style but the narrative is lost. I did find the film a curious watch and felt that there was a better movie in there somewhere.

Still Brosnan and McTiernan would later reunited in the remake of The Thomas Crown Affair with McTiernan becoming one of Hollywood's top action directors.

Got this cheap on a sale. I've been having this 80's season with watching movies and decided to purchase it without any prior knowledge of it. I was just surprised it's a McTiernan movie I hadn't heard of.

I wasn't completely convinced at first and thought that it was 2 euros flushed down the toilet. The story picks up quite slow and the beginning is executed in a style I wasn't very fond of. Brosnan portraying a frenchman was a bit annoying too. But after 30 minutes or so, I was pretty hooked to see how the movie would eventually unfold.

Even tho it turned out to be "ok", it's got a lot of flaws. It feels as if it would've needed a lot more substance in script. The whole nomad story is pretty vague and there's not much background info on Brosnans expeditions, which would've made this movie more gripping and interesting. The connection is there, but to me it didn't deliver. I was left a bit confused with a lot of things. It almost goes into David Lynch territory at times, which isn't a completely bad thing, but you need to have that "something" to pull off a supernatural mystery like this. To me this wasn't such a movie, even tho it may not be too far from succeeding. Something was missing from the story.

I was also left wondering if the movie had worked better without the doctor lady completely, concentrating on Brosnans character. The whole flashback/hallucination thing was mostly just confusing. There was some nice editing at times and it added to the tension, but I still feel this movie would've worked better in a more linear fashion, dropping the doctor character completely.

So, the initial story was interesting, but the execution made it a mess. Maybe I should watch it again to appreciate the structure, but at the moment I don't see myself spending another 90 minutes on it. I'll keep it in my movie library tho, just in case I wan't to revisit it at some point.

As a side note, the movie contains one of the most brutal scenes I've witnessed on screen. It's not graphic at all and is portrayed from a distance, but it comes very unexpected. It really made me feel uncomfortable.

6 points for the story and originality, may be a bit generous tho. Maybe it was worth the 2 euros I payed for it, but not more. McTiernan continues to be a mystery of a director, having made classics and my favorites Die Hard and Predator, but still capable of creating an artsy movie like this and some complete garbage like Rollerball remake.

John McTiernan's Nomads is one of the best, and most unconventional horror flicks that you've never seen. Nestled so far back into the 80's that it stands as the mile marker for Pierce Brosnan's first on screen leading role, it's a beautifully tense, atmospherically crafted fright flick that's been lost to the hazy aeons of time. Unique in it's ambiguity, this is a film bereft of bells, whistles, gore effects or even obviously spooky apparitions, relying solely on mood to impart illusory menace that's never shoved in your face of spoon fed. Brosnan plays a French (hon hon) archaeologist who begins to suspect he's being followed by a group of unruly urban punks which, upon further introspection, could possibly be the malevolent spirits of a now extinct tribe he discovered years ago. It's a vague, very weird concept, but it just somehow works, the presence of these grimy streetwalkers inciting palpable fear at the thought that they're not what they seem at all. Opposites are at work here; by showing nothing, the filmmakers tell us and make us feel everything that is unseen, daring us to imagine what these mysterious beings might actually be, unsettling us further by having them appear in such benign (relatively speaking) form. It'll frustrate many, but those tuned into the film's eerie frequency will get the same chill down their spine that Brosnan perpetually walks around with, harassed no end by these meanies. The actors for these things are all especially chosen as well, each coached beautifully by McTiernan to act just normal enough to blend into the derelict fringes of an urban environment, while giving their demeanour an unnerving esoteric aspect, until they seem like a cross between mute versions of the Near Dark gypsy vampire clan and spectral coyotes. Brilliant concoction of subtle horror, clammy tension and gorgeously layered atmosphere.

'Nomads' is the debut feature from director John McTiernan, who would go on to bring us unforgettable films like 'Predator', 'Die Hard', and 'The Hunt for Red October'. Honestly, I would lie if I were to tell you I know what 'Nomads' is all about.

This is probably the type of film you have to carefully analyze to fully understand or appreciate. Although classified as a horror movie, it is not horror in the sense of blood, guts and gore. This is horror on a different level: discomfort, nightmares, visions...The film is interesting at times, but ultimately just too weird, and not all that easy to follow due to a most unusual narration.

The film plays like a nightmare - literally. The acting was pretty good, but didn't compensate for a very confusing script. The film certainly is mysterious, and very different. By the end, I had no idea what the story was, or what message they were trying to convey. I'm going to forget this very soon. Even famed film critic Robert Ebert referred to the film as "too confusing to understand".

Would I watch it again? No.

A French anthropologist (Pierce Brosnan) moves to Los Angeles and is followed by the evil spirits of an extinct tribe he once uncovered.

Despite the incredible Adam Ant, and starring Pierce Brosnan (as a Frenchman?)... and being written and directed by John McTiernan, master of the action film, this movie has received overwhelmingly negative reviews.

Jay Scott is the exception, as he described Nomads as "a breathlessly unself-conscious film (there is none of the self-congratulatory stylization of Blood Simple), the tone alternates maniacally between scaring the audience and making it giggle." Scott said McTiernan "has brought to his project a staggeringly resourceful technique. The sharply unpredictable editing, the hypnotic use of slow motion and rack focus (that's when the background and foreground reverse in clarity), the ominous rock music - everything adds up to a debut of singular confidence, full of fun and creepiness."

Scott may be alone. I was not all that thrilled by the film as a whole, neither a horror fan nor as someone who has otherwise enjoyed McTiernan's work. Perhaps I need to give it a second chance, but this is a largely forgotten film that has probably earned its place in the memory hole.