Tenet: Review

The deafening hum of a synthesizer, like 20 police cars going past in succession, heralds the most confusing opening scene of the decade. As you feel your brain slowly tricking out through your ear you desperately try to tune in on the muffled technobabble you aren't going to understand anyway but the film tells you is "important", you smile to yourself. Christopher Nolan is back.

After seeing this film yesterday my opinions keep fluctuating as much as my interest did while watching it. Is it a bold, original action movie with a good cast and amazing action sequences? Yes. Is it also everything I hate about Christopher Nolan's work compacted into one frustratingly drawn out bundle? Also yes.

Me and Christopher Nolan have a bit of a patchy history. I've always loved his ideas. The concepts he comes up with for his films, the set pieces and the sheer ambition of them have always excited me. It's no question that he is one of the best action filmmakers currently working and he is pushing the genre beyond the hollywood franchises making high budget original stories. However, I've always felt disenfranchised from his films and not in a good way. As much as I want to, I can never bring myself to agree with the hype and I always leave the cinema thinking there's something I've missed while my friends chatter excitedly behind me. The only exception that comes to mind is his 2017 hit Dunkirk but even that has elements that push me away more than they pull me in.

1. Plot

Tenet is about "The Protagonist" played by John David Washington (I think one of the characters called him Max but that's what his name's listed as on IMDB) a CIA agent who passed some kind of test and was deemed trustworthy enough to be let-in on a secret mission. Ammunition and weapons from the future have been found. How they got here is unknown but these weapons are inverted, they can only move backwards. Scientists believe that these are remnants from an impending WW3 and The Protagonist must team up with British intelligence to find out who the arms dealer is who has contact with the future.

His search along with suave British intelligence agent Neil (Robert Patterson) brings him to Russian gangster Andrei Sator, acted jarringly by 2015 Cinderella director Kenneth Branagh. Knowing he is somehow involved The Protagonist uses his weak spot, his wife Kat, to get close to him. I say this like I followed the first half of this film easily, I did not. It took quite a lot of retrospect to write this review.

As the plot progresses twists are revealed showing that not everyone is who they seem and some characters know more than they are letting on, something that can't be said for the audience. Personally I felt like I was running at least three scenes behind the film, desperately trying to keep up until I just decided to just surrender to it.

2. The Good Stuff

I love time travel stories. They are my favourite form of science fiction because I know how hard they are to write and how much effort has to go into crafting them. The world and the rules of Tenet are undoubtedly well crafted and original. Every time the time travel elements were in play I immediately became more invested. It might be a gimmick but it is a cool gimmick and I felt like it was played out extremely well.

There are two scenes especially that stand out for me both involving glass divides. There are two things that Nolan does famously well and that's action and ideas and both of these play out flawlessly in those two scenes.

The film also has a very talented if somewhat missued cast. John David Washington after his breakout role in BlackKklansman has proved himself to be a magnetic and charismatic leading man, something that aches to come out during this film but remains frustratingly subdued. Robert Patterson is also fast becoming one of my favourite actors and while he embodies "sidekick with a secret" incredibly well I couldn't help but view his character as also being repressed in the personality department. While this is intentional for the first half of the film the lack of time taken to understand the characters and establish more of a relationship felt like a missed opportunity to create something great. Audiences will put up with a lot of bull if the characters are worth watching.

However, I was never beyond caring about the film. Despite some lack-luster expositional dialogue the standard of acting alone was enough to elevate the film to an enjoyable watching experience. It truly is incredible what good actors will do for your film. It's a shame that the actors give more to this film than it can ever give to them.

The scale of the film is also incredibly cool and worth watching on a big screen. The last act is truly awesome even if you're still trying to figure out what they're doing there.

3. The Nolan 3

There are 3 elements that plague almost every film Nolan has ever made.

1. Plot device female characters- I'm just going to get this one out of the way. Christopher Nolan tends to do his female characters dirty. Whether they're sexualised, monosyllabic plot devices devised as sentient macguffins like Kat in Tenant or Rachel in Batman who aren't allowed any kind of personality that's not in service to moving the story along or if they're just along for the ride after being set up as a promising character (Ariadne in Inception) Nolan seems determined to give his female characters as little to do as possible unless they're not wearing pants. At this point I'm just kind of past it.

2. Idea over character- All of Nolan's films seem to be idea first, characters second. He'll give them motivation (except not in Tenent... I have no idea what the motivation there is) but this is nearly always in service to the idea. Sometimes the idea is enough to carry the film, a lot of the time it isn't for me. When your characters spend more time explaining the plot of the film to your audience than they do reacting to the effects of it you've got a problem.

3. Big ideas don't always mean big impact- Nolan films are often long, expositional, entertaining, smart and at times EXTREMELY BORING. Technobabble aside he often likes to make his characters talk in as little subtext as possible while still trying to milk his grand idea for the grandiose themes he thinks it possesses. I'm not trying to say his films don't explore big themes. They do. In-fact they like to shove it down your throat with all the subtlety of a bullet train. It might just be me but I always feel like Nolan's films have an ego problem and like to pat themselves on the back for being "complex". For me the bigger you try to make everything feel, the smaller the impact. I will have a more emotional reaction to a well drawn protagonist pricking his finger than ten characters I don't care about going into battle, no-matter how poignant your theme.

All three of these apply in abundance to Tenet, perhaps more than any of his previous works.

4. Conclusion

A lot of people are going to really, really like this film and I can understand why. It's a good time travel story with a new protagonist and some stellar action sequences and if that's what you like to go to the cinema for, you do you boo!

The more straight action films I watch the more I feel like this genre just isn't for me. What Tenet ultimately lacks is a personality, something I personally value over concept to have a good time. It's frustrating because I feel like all the elements where there. Whether that's just good actors elevating their material or important emotional beats ending up on the cutting room floor it feels like there is simultaneously too much film and not enough.

Not a bad movie-going experience by any stretch but an annoyingly predictable one from a film I thought was going to break the rules. The more I think about it, the more I understand it and the more it frustrates me.

5/Ten-et