Save your money for something good and enjoyable

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

If you are fond on French crime novels world, you know that this film was adapted from à Jean-Patrick Manchette's novel. One of the best French novelist from the seventies and eighties. The novel which this feature is adapted from was a very nihilistic tale against the institutions, governments and state rules. And this movie made by Claude Chabrol - whose it is not the kind of movies he usually did, you know that - this film seems very close, scene for scene, to the book. If you dare comparing, this film NADA is, to the genuine novel material, exactly the same that Jean-Pierre Melville's LE DEUXIEME Soufflé was to Jose Giovanni's novel. In both cases, the movies made from the books seem so close to them. But you would be damn wrong if you thought so. Concerning Melville's film, please read my comment. But about NADA, I repeat, Manchette gave us a story which enhanced the anarchists, or left winged terrorists, he tried to give them some good reasons to behave as they did. But if you read the book and then watch the movie very closely, you will notice that Chabrol doesn't have the same language. In a sort of way, he criticizes the anarchists. He wants to show to the audiences the emptiness of everything they do. In that purpose, he uses some sentences told by the anarchists characters. Even if, I repeat, the movie seemed to have been shot, "book handed". Page by page.The message was not the same.And, besides, I have already seen movies adapted very differently from novels but only on the "shape" - scenes - but not on the true meaning. For instance both RIFIFI films: RIFIFI CHEZ LES HOMMES and RIFIFI CHEZ LES FEMMES. I will finish by telling you that Michel Aumont gives in this film one of his best performances ever as the terrific, nasty, disgusting commissaire - superintendent - Goémond. Michel Aumont who is still alive and also a great stage performer.

An anarchist group called Nada kidnap the American ambassador in a high class Paris brothel. The state then counter this by giving the chief of police license to deal with the situation. The state proves to be more brutal than the terrorists.This is a pretty atypical film from Claude Chabrol. While it deals with moral ambiguity, which many of his films do, it also is very directly political which is unusual. Other than the idea that the state can be more amoral than terrorists, I'm not too sure what else the film has to say. The subject matter of Marxist revolutionaries taking radical action is one that would have been much more in vogue in the 70's than now though. Overall, the film lacks the personal feel of Chabrol's more intimate thrillers. The political angle doesn't seem to be material best suited to his style. And as a result Nada is a slightly underwhelming movie.

In the stiff and confusing "NADA", Claude Chabrol invite us to follow a revolutionary group called NADA and their dangerous mission of kidnapping the American Ambassador in France in exchange of some political demands, confronting a repressive govern that didn't want any kind of talk with these folks. The movie is broken in two: first, we follow up the group led by Buenaventura Diaz (Fabio Testi) and formed by young guys and a woman; and the other half is the police and authorities trying to block NADA's activities and rescue the ambassador.The movie never explains the origin of the name (or if they did I must have missed), but in Potuguese the word 'Nada' means nothing, and nothing is what this movie has to show. Chabrol was trying to make here a mix of political thrillers à-la Costa Gavras mixed with Godard's political expressions and speeches, and the final result is a movie with no message, no direction, with a few good action sequences to thrill us at the ending but in the middle the project gets very, very boring. This kind of material on Godard or Gavras hands would be amazing or at least interesting, better developed on screen. This so-called leftist revolutionists and their ideas fall flat because while fighting to implant their revolution they prefer to get arrested than to get killed, in fact, they don't have a cause - but we can assume they're opposed to America's control on everything. True believers in ideals would prefer to die than go to jail. So why we should care for them? The idea of fighting back never occur to them and their characters aren't people we can relate with. The main problem with "NADA" besides of not having a speech or something relevant to show and say, is filled with long dialogs (specially the ones concerning the police) that goes nowhere, driving viewers to insanity. Good action sequences; a nice ending; and a handsome actor like Testi, are not enough to raise a movie from its dreadful depths. Very disappointing. 3/10

THE NADA GANG (Claude Chabrol - France/Italy 1974).With this excellent political thriller Claude Chabrol charted into more familiar genre territory. This time he made this cynical account about a small Franch group of post '68 terrorists kidnapping the American ambassador from a luxury Parisian brothel, secreting him away in an isolated farmhouse while they wait for an answer to their demands. But the police chief they're dealing with is even more violent than they are and doesn't care about getting back the hostage alive.In hindsight this film has become a typical exponent of the - mostly left wing - underground activities in the '70s and 80's. In these modern times, when terrorism is almost exclusively associated with Islamic religiously motivated terrorists, this kind of political activism comes across as refreshingly modern.While some might consider Nada as somewhat of a disappointment after Chabrol's brilliant series of films, like La femme infidèle (1969) Qua la bête meure (1969), Le Boucher (1970), La Rupture (1970) and Juste avant la nuit (1971), this remains cool, stylish and exciting film-making of the kind very few directors can match. And what about Fabio Testi in his black leather overcoat? Is he the coolest looking criminal you've ever seen, or what?Camera Obscura --- 8/10