Nada, named after a gang of Spanish anarchists, is a small, confused band of French terrorists. They kidnap the American ambassador after one of his regular visits to an exclusive brothel. The gang starts to quarrel amongst themselves as to the diplomat's fate, while the police purge suspects in their attempts to destroy the Nada faction. As the violence escalates on both sides, the States and the terrorists are forced to use one another's methods in an increasingly desperate and relentless conflict.
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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
"Nada" was the most inadequate follow-up to "Les NOces Rouges" which,with hindsight,appears now as the last good movie of Chabrol's golden era (1967-1973) "Nada" is Chabrol's first real attempt at a wholly political movie;his previous work "les Noces Rouges" had also political elements but it was more a psychological thriller with the usual look at society in French provinces."Nada" includes terrorists,ambassador,hostage-taking,a lot of blood,not really Chabrol's field.A heterogeneous cast gives the movie the coup de grâce :only Duchaussoy,who had already played with the director ,and Maurice Garrel are up to scratch.Viviane Romance ,one of Duvivier's actresses ("la Belle Equipe" "Panique") ,is wasted as a madam (Gabrielle).Italian actors (Fabio Testi,Lou Castel)are awful.With "Nada" this a second period of barren inspiration for Chabrol .It would be "Violette Nozières" before he was again at the top of his game.
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
For nearly a decade, in the late 60s and early 70s, Claude Chabrol was arguably the greatest director in the world, in Europe at any rate. 'Nada' comes from this period, and yet is an exception in the oeuvre. Instead of a claustrophobic thriller in a domestic setting, 'Nada' is about international terrorists running amok through France (in a way, the film is a parody of the previous year's 'Day of the Jackal'). Instead of intricate psychological depth, Chabrol offers pure cartoon. The police are a hangover from the Vichy era, murderously cyncial, while the terrorists are organised by someone who no longer believes in revolution.As a sophisticated analysis of pressing contemporary events, the whole thing seems rather silly, until you start spotting Chabrol's wicked, misanthropic irony, and you wonder if the old boy hasn't done it after all. Never take Chabrol's glittering surfaces at face value. The massacre scene is deeply cynical, shocking, brilliant cinema.