Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Excellent adaptation.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

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.

A group of anarchist leftist called "Nada" and led by the terrorist Buenaventura Diaz (Fabio Testi) abducts the American ambassador Richard Poindexter (Lyle Joyce) in a brothel in Paris and brings him to a farm in the countryside. The French Minister (André Falcon) gives a blank cheque to the violent chief of police Goemond to destroy the kidnappers and then makes him the scapegoat to protect the State. "Nada" is a political thriller by Claude Chabrol with a confused and pointless message. Maybe in the historical moment of its release (1974), with the United States of America sponsoring the dictatorships in South America, this acid criticism to the role and behavior of the State could work. But in 2011, this film is dated. In this genre, I still prefer Costa-Gravas films. My vote is six.Title (Brazil): Not Available

The NADA Group's weakness is that it's both too circumscribed by the state and too willing to mirror the state to count itself as revolutionary. The boldness of Chabrol's film is his picture of a criminal, sadistic authoritarian state, so that the first half of this equation is more than convincing. In his first and last theoretic statement, Diaz says: "Leftist and state-controlled terrorism, while their methods cannot be compared, are the two jaws of the same idiot trap." Yes, Diaz is right the trap he fell into was much of his own doing, but the failings of the cadre is in no way comparable to the nearly absolute social control of the state.This said, the outcome of the kidnapping of the US Ambassador, might have been more favorable--or not undertaken in the first place--if NADA was a truly revolutionary group. The greater the force, the stronger the internal politics have to be. That is, self-determination may not have been an option, but acting according to principle was. Three ways in which NADA reflects the state, and thus makes itself more vulnerable to the state, are in its treatment of women, in its casual reliance on violence, and in its adherence to spectacle.Upon entry into the US Ambasador's bordello suite, one NADA member announces "We are not sadists," presumably to ease "Salome" and claim a difference with the State. Granted, but NADA is sexist. It does practice sexual commodification and it does exploit women. Veronique Cash may not need a Madam, nor get paid for her services, but one of her services is obviously sexual. Women as sexy yes, love as sex no: this is the formula of both the State and NADA. And tellingly, Epeulard, mister experienced-revolutionary, does not want her in the group, but he does want her body. Cash is kind of like the drinks she serves, a kind of badge for the cadre's masculine status. Nameless, to both the police state and to the cadre, she identifies herself as "a kept girl" or "I'm a girl, I'm a whore." And is referred to as "a misunderstood bitch," which is, in a way, accurate. For she may be, in the end, the most subversive "member" of NADA. She alone is in touch with the natural world (her rabbits are the first victims of the massacre); she alone is armed enough to take measure of vengeance for it, and she alone can take the measure of the failed men around her (the only man shown doing housework is Epeulard --and only after his impotence is made clear). But it's her shocking mind-blown murder at the hands of the fully masked Goeman that's the ultimate proof both a brutally sexist state, and a feckless revolutionary cadre.In the tete-a-tete between the Minister and Goemond, the siege of NADA is put on the level of military operation, cross-hairs, cold calculation, and summarial justice: "I don't care how you do the job," says the Minister. "Besides, is it worth taking them alive?" "If up to me," says Goemond, "I would put them to the wall... but the Ambassador?" "If they liquidate him," says the Minister, "how dreadful... the left has a tiny fraction of sympathy which could no longer identify with the left." NADA's violence casts a very weak shadow next to the fatherland's, but it's relation to it is no less obvious. The bungled abduction, the shoddy planning, the death of the cop and the house worker, the male swagger and callousness, the casual romance of the plan, the cynicism and indifference, and the suicidal, heroic tendencies, are all part of NADA's violence. An actual opportunity does not a timely and thought-out political action make. One result of this is the immediate round-up, interrogation and, in some cases, torture, of a thousand Parisian lefties. Another is the subsequent deaths of every damn one of the NADA comrades. All this cannot simply be cast off as expediency. It is not true as Goemond says "that leftist have no guts," but it may true that action and weapons are more endearing to them than intelligence or defense.Yes, "the revolution will not be televised." But the state/media are one and NADA gets cast in a story it cannot direct. Lifestyle, personality, posturing, and cool gestures can inform their narrative, while intelligence, community, and reason are what the omnipresent cameras and TV screens cannot shoot nor display. So if the state has its script, stagecraft, and empire style down pat, NADA, unable to produce its own image, must capitulate in its own demise. Each member's role is cued by the shadows of little screens. One adapts an all-black clothing scheme, another shouts "I'd rather die in blood, than live in a pile of poop," another goes down with "shit, long live death." No wonder XX says "the 60s had a goal;" and calls this malleable giddy group a "bunch of kooks." Diaz, on the lam after the siege, broadcasts his identity to a gas-attendant, trusting fame will spark the revolution: "tell the press they murdered us." NADA confuses popular support with voyeurism. And Diaz, believing in the simple idea of anti-authority is, like NADA itself,, politically apathetic, and never asserts any politics on its own terms. So, it's up to Treuffais, who's passed up the abduction, to offer the "short but full story of the Nada Group" which he does in words and not images.

Claude Chabrol had his golden period in the late sixties and early seventies with films like This Man Must Die, The Breach and Wedding in Blood. These films were great because Chabrol delivered thrills and complex characters in equal measures; but Nada is something of a change of pace and unfortunately this film is not vintage Chabrol. The film features basically a criminal plot and this is mixed in with political elements. From a personal point of view, politics doesn't interest me that much anyway; but that is especially true here as Chabrol isn't able to spin an interesting story out of it. The plot focuses on a group of kidnappers that call themselves 'NADA'. They hatch a plot to kidnap the American ambassador, take him back to their hideaway and wait for the Government to give into their ransom demands. The plot goes smoothly; but the gang encounter trouble when internal rivalries begin to spring up; and they find out that the police chief they're up against is less forgiving than they are.From Claude Chabrol I have come to expect intriguing and meaningful films that work on a multitude of levels. Part of the reason why I don't consider Nada to be anything like Chabrol's best work is simply because I don't care about the subject matter (as opposed to the best of Chabrol, which have the ability to appeal to everyone). However, the fact still remains that this is not a particularly good film. The point of the film is muddled at best and Chabrol's message is always hazy. The plotting is not particularly exciting and since the plot line is not interesting; Nada does at times become difficult to follow. To its credit, the film is rather well made and as always Chabrol does a good job of staging and setting scenes. The acting is decent too and Chabrol has brought together a varied and interesting cast, headed by Italian actor Fabio Testi, who plays their respective roles well. Overall I would not recommend this to my fellow Chabrol fans; the great director has a vast filmography filled with classics and I would recommend seeing those instead.