1986’s Nomads opens with anthropologist Jean-Charles Pommier being rushed into an emergency room, badly beaten and struggling for his life. Despite the best efforts of Dr. Eileen Flax (Lesley-Anne Down), Pommier dies in the ER. Flax is shocked by Pommier’s death and, naturally, she’s upset that she couldn’t save him. But, at the same time, people die in hospitals. It happens to the best of doctors.
Except soon, Flax is seeing flashes of the events that led to Pommier’s death. Pommier has somehow entered her mind and soon, she’s reliving his investigation into the origins of a group of destructive, urban nomads that Pommier witnessed causing havoc throughout Los Angeles. Pommier often felt like he was the only person who was capable of seeing the nomads and he grew to be tortured by his fear that they were specifically stalking him. We soon learn that there was reason for that….
Now, based on his name, you’re probably assuming that Pommier is meant to be French. And he is! He’s from France, though he considers himself to be a citizen of the world. He’s traveled everywhere, taking pictures of different cultural rituals across the globe. However, in Nomads, the very French Jean-Charles Pommier is played by Pierce Brosnan. Pierce Brosnan is, needless to say, not French. He’s Irish, even though a lot of people seem to be shocked when they first learn that. Brosnan normally speaks with an accent that could best be described as a mix of posh London and mid-Atlantic American. Everything about him screams the UK. In short, Pierce Brosnan is one of the least convincing French people ever seen on film and he delivers his lines in an accent that sounds like every accent other than the French accent. Watching this film, I found myself thinking about the Monty Python skit where Terry Jones and Carol Cleveland starred in a French movie. (“I see you have a cabbage.” “Oui.”) Brosnan is not a bad actor and it’s entertaining to watch him overact in Nomads. But there’s nothing French about him and every time that someone referred to him as being French, it totally took me out of the movie.
Which is a shame because Nomads may be narratively incoherent but it’s got some memorably surreal visuals and it does a good job of generating a properly ominous atmosphere. Director John McTiernan (who later went on to do Predator, Die Hard, and The Hunt For Red October) makes smart use of slow motion and a handheld camera to keep the audience off-balance. At its best, Nomads achieves a dream-like intensity that makes up for the fact that the story doesn’t make the least bit of sense. The nomads themselves are a memorable and creepy. While Adam Ant plays their leader (and the scene where he smiles as Brosnan attempts to throw him off a building is truly disturbing), the most frightening of the nomads is Mary Woronov as Dancing Mary. Seriously, after I watched this film, I checked all the locks in the house. No urban nomads were going to interrupt me in my sleep!
My suggestion to everyone is to do a Nomads/Nomadland double feature. You’ll never get in another van.
