Dog’s Movie House: “Tenet” Another Nolan Masterpiece? I Don’t Know Yet!

The answer to this question is mostly yes. A lot depends on how much you buy into the time altering jargon that permeates the film and believe me, it’s a lot! Let’s get on with the basics of the story. It involves a fellow simply called The Protagonist (John David Washington), an agent of sorts who finds himself recruited into a mysterious organization called Tenet when he proves his loyalty in a rather extreme fashion. Tenet also serves as a code word that gets him into different doors (of a theoretical kind) that allows him to continue his mission. What’s his mission? It’s to stop an apocalypse designed by a Russian arms dealer named Andrei Sator (Kenneth Branagh in a scenery chewing performance). Sator also has the ability to use an ability called “inversion” which, aside from being visually cool, allows him to invert everything from bullets to people, causing them to travel backwards for brief periods of time. The Protagonist, along with his crew (including Robert Pattinson’s enigmatic Neil), must use this technology to stop the apocalypse.

I could really try to explain the details but they really do defy written description. “Tenet” is very much a film of visual language, more so than even other Nolan films. As I watched it, I discovered that I understood most of what was going on but the rules of inversion seemed a bit muddled to me. It’s kind of like time travel, but of a very limited kind. The characters in the movie talk about tech from the future but aren’t able to actually travel there. They can move back in time, but only at a maximum of a few days because they actually have to travel. Time doesn’t speed up, per say, it just runs backwards.

If you don’t get it, don’t worry about it. The visual language in “Tenet” makes it a bit more palatable then the exposition coming out the the character’s mouths. The story itself is a relatively simple race-against-time narrative; it’s just the mechanics of time that are a bit screwy. These new rules allow Nolan to pull off some truly show stopping action set pieces including some shots where time seems to run forward and backward at the same time.

As for the performances, “Tenet” has some great actors doing some good work despite the sometimes overabundance of exposition. Washington is fantastic as The Protagonist, a man who’s in over his head despite his expertise in other forms of spycraft. He adapts to the situation without sacrificing his essential humanity, making him a character the audience can relate to. Meanwhile, Branagh brings a nice intensity to his role as Andrei, a man who has his own reasons for doing what he does. Pattinson is the embodiment of cool reserve as Neil, a man who clearly knows more about what’s going on than he’s telling. Elizabeth Debicki also impresses as Kat, the wife of Andrei who becomes The Protagonist’s ally in return for getting out of her violent marriage.

The narrative moves at a swift pace and the film never feels overlong. Nolan has a great way of building anticipation for the various heist and action scenes that make the payoffs all the more satisfying (even if you don’t always know what’s going on at the time.) The inversion angle definitely makes “Tenet” seem more original than the average spy flick. Whether or not “Tenet” is the most original sci-fi film ever is up for debate, but it’s definitely an entertaining and grand piece of filmmaking that deserves to be seen on the big screen. If you do go to the theater, please be careful. As good as this movie is, it’s still just a movie. 4 Out Of 5 On Kendog’s Barkometer! So Sayeth The Kendog!

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