Big Nothing

A solid black-humor thriller. One of the most intricate and attractive scripts in this genre ever. Not only is the central trio entertaining in their own right, the excellent one-liners and unpredictable twists and turns appearing every five minutes are a delight, you are literally shocked and fascinated by the screenwriting pearls the director pulls out and I swallowed the film with a gulp. I have a soft spot for films like this. 90%. (09/03/2015)

So I was wondering how this first collaboration between David Schwimmer and Simon Pegg turned out, and I must say that I am quite disappointed. Not because of how these two, who are excellent comedic actors, did, but because of the screenplay. Jean-Babtiste Andrea (co-writer and director) obviously took inspiration from the Coen brothers and decided to make a film similar to "Fargo". It didn't work, damn it, of course it didn't work, because he simply lacks the gift for the right dialogue, but especially for the story. It's actually a mess that piles up without any order, the director wants to shock us with sudden twists to take our breath away. But the Coens are different in the sense that they build the story on solid foundations, on great characters. "Zero from Zero Goes" pulls out completely senseless variations from its sleeve just to make it interesting. No justification, no real involvement in the plot. What a pity, this could have been so much better. More: http://www.filmovy-denik.cz/2012/04/bruce-clint-simon-david-zbouchnuta-v.html (17/02/2013)

Jean-Baptiste has seen a lot of movies, has tons of ideas that he puts into good practice and again, after Dead End, proves that he’s certainly got something in him. Simon and David are an excellently matched pair of nice guys and Natascha certainly doesn’t spoil anything for them. At the beginning it seems that the only glitch is the screenplay that seemed to be living up to the title of the movie. But, starting with the scene with the cesspool, the black-humor, hair-brained storyline becomes the main powerhouse. In the end, nothing about Big Nothing is miraculous or even original, but it is first-rate fun. It reminded me of the beautiful experience I had watching Shallow Grave, although they don’t have very much in common really. The sort of movie that you expect big nothing from and then, hey presto, it turns out to be a very pleasant experience. (20/05/2008)

Every plan is perfect until it’s met by Flaw and Improvisation at the door. There are plenty of films about losers who try to get rich by breaking the law, sometimes even for a good cause, and this one stands out only in how quickly it piles on plot twists that prevent the viewer from thinking too deeply about the childishness of it all. Given the overall nature of the film, you can gradually guess whether the ending will lead to the hybrid saying, "He who laughs last, laughs green." (19/09/2024)

A rather crazy film that could be characterized as a comedy with a crime plot, which uses violence as an entertaining element in the style of Tarantino. It has a sense of influence from the American independent scene and it could perhaps be compared to the film 11:14. A script plaything, where multiple plot lines are intertwined, the characters in the film come up with a series of both transparent and completely opaque dirty tricks, and the whole thing is not stylistically clean. However, the film's entertainment value cannot be denied. The biggest draw is Simon Pegg, but the rest are decent as well. The downside, as I mentioned earlier, is the inability to maintain a clean style, so the film sometimes plays on sentimentality through the character of the main protagonist, and some scenes are unnecessarily bloody for a film that presents itself as a family comedy for the majority of its runtime. Overall impression: 75%. (01/03/2009)