Nomad

When a trailer is so generic that it’s meaninglessness almost seems deliberate, you know that there are two possibilities. The first is that the movie is not worth watching, and the studio knows it, so they’re not sure how to market it. The second is that the movie is watchable, maybe even good, but that it’s appeal is so quirky and specific that the studio is afraid to release a trailer that represents the movie as it really is.

This is a foreign film, but you can’t tell from the trailer, because there is no dialog. That is by design. Here we have an epic, historical action movie that is not in English. Can you think of any other movies like that? If you’re American, you probably can’t, which means that there is little if any precedent for a film like Nomad to do well at the box office. So it’s being marketed as a generic Hollywood sword-and-sandal catharsis. You can almost hear the implicit "If you liked Braveheart, you’ll at least moderately enjoy Nomad" as you watch the trailer.

But you might not. Is Nomad a foreign film that was deliberately made in the style of a Hollywood movie?
Is it something much different, and merely being made to appear as much like a Hollywood movie as possible, in the hope that three or four people will pay to see it?

All this is disappointing, because this movie was made in Kazahkstan, and Borat has sparked western curiosity as to what Kazakhs are actually like. Regardless of how good the movie is, a more honest trailer would have at least guaranteed a small paying audience of self-appointed ambassadors of cultural goodwill.

Nomad Trailer