After years of TV fame (Remington
Steele), small roles in big movies (Mrs. Doubtfire) and big roles in
really stupid movies (The Lawnmower
Man), taking over as the best Bond since Connery in 1995’s Goldeneye
finally catapulted Brosnan into the Hollywood big leagues. Well, temporarily,
at least.
But like most jobbing actors of his vintage, Pierce has more than a few
howlers lurking in his filmography though none are quite so spectacularly
strange as this debut flick from director John McTiernan.
Perhaps most
surprising of all is the fact that Brosnan manages to play the lead character,
despite dropping dead in the opening scene.
Brought into a hospital emergency room, delirious and afflicted with
a hideous beard, he manages to whisper an enigmatic message to Leslie
Ann Down’s harassed doctor – in French, no less – before
he keels over. His story then unfolds in flashback as Doctor Leslie finds
herself haunted by memories from the ex-Brosnan’s life.
See, it turns out that Pierce was a French anthropologist (with a wonderfully
variable Clouseau-esque accent) recently arrived in Los Angeles for a
cushy academic post, after years trotting the globe poking his nose and
camera into native business. As his story unfolds, we discover that his
untimely demise appears to be the result of an obsession with a gang
of street toughs who are drawn to his rented home, the location of a
grisly murder.
But wouldn’t you know it? Although they look like extras from a
Duran Duran video, these aren’t your normal common-or-garden leather-jacketed
New Romantic thugs. Oh no. As Pierce tracks them through the urban jungle,
he realises that these modern day nomads never seem to stop or sleep.
They also sacrifice people and dump their bodies in dumpsters. Bodies
which then vanish. And, just in case more concrete evidence of their
supernatural origin was needed, they don’t show up in his photographs
either. Ooh la la! Tres spooky, non?
He finally twigs that the nomads are earthly manifestations of wandering
evil spirits from the netherworld that are less than pleased with the
way Le Brosnan has been poking into their domain through his native studies
and their revenge is to, well, drive him bonkers. Which they do. As we
saw at the start of the movie. Full circle, you see.
To be fair, for all its outlandish ideas and quaintly cheesy Eighties
pop video styling Nomads is a pretty effective little creep show. There
are some clever edits as we shuttle between the past and present, and
McTiernan manages to create an engaging air of urban menace without overplaying
his hand. Brosnan himself plays things much the same as usual – one
part suave macho man, one part smug lothario – though it’s
worth catching just for the unbeatable combo of the beard and the accent.
Need to know: The mute leader of the eerie nomads, referred to only as
Number One, is played by the dandy highwayman of Eighties pop, Adam Ant.
Director John McTiernan would, of course, find considerably greater success
with his next two films – a couple of little action romps called
Predator and Die Hard.
Availability: Long since out of print in the UK, Nomads did receive a
DVD release in the US in 2002. British VHS copies often crop up on Ebay
for reasonable prices.
