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 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