Tenet - Review

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

CHRISTOPHER Nolan has rightly been hailed a genius for his visionary and inventive style of filmmaking thanks to high concept ideas such as Inception, Interstellar and the way in which he re-imagined the Dark Knight franchise.

Yet while Tenet undoubtedly seeks to extend that formula to often giddy new heights, it’s also evidence of a director at his most self-indulgent. And that begins with the premise itself, which seeks to out-do Inception for the way in which it plays with your brain.

Unlike Inception, though, the ensuing mind puzzle is nowhere near as satisfying. If anything, it raises more questions than answers, leading to the suspicion that it doesn’t make sense. And this is only heightened by a line in the script, during an exposition heavy sequence, where one character informs the protagonist: “Don’t try to understand it. Just feel it.”

If you are prepared to take that advice, however, then you’re in for something unique and sometimes special. For while Tenet can frustrate and annoy, it also has the ability to dazzle and exhilarate.

The story follows a central character known only as The Protagonist (John David Washington) as he fights to prevent the end of the world by an unknown foe, possibly from the future. Armed with only the word ‘tenet’, The Protagonist must navigate Indian arms dealers, a powerful Russian ogliarch (Kenneth Branagh) and his wife (Elizabeth Debicki) and fluctuations in time (inversions) to try and stop the unthinkable, all with the help of an ally named Neil (Robert Pattinson).

His ensuing mission takes him around the world and into several different time zones, with reverse time scenarios interacting, or colliding, with real-time momentum. Hence, fights can be fought in reverse, while car chases and gunfights appear in similarly choreographed fashion, leading to a sense of disorientation as well as ingenuity.

But while this undoubtedly makes for eye-popping spectacle, it also contributes to an overall sense of ‘what the fuck is going on?’, which doesn’t always yield satisfactory answers.

Indeed, it’s often the case that just when you think you have the measure of things, they get away from you again. Viewers will be racing to keep up as fast as the protagonist.

That being said, the scale and spectacle of the film is undeniable. Nolan makes spectacular use of location (the Italian sequences, in particular, demand big screens), while his set pieces look to outdo the best of Bond and any subsequent spy-based genre leaders. There is unrivalled ingenuity to many of the action sequences given the way that they toy with reality and, therefore, convention.

Who else but Nolan would have the filmmaking chops to pull off a heist involving the crashing of a 747 (as a distraction), let alone mind-bending choreography that tests the limits of known reality while keeping the action grounded and somehow still plausible - as well as realistic and tense.

And there’s also some great performances, with Washington a suitably efficient and no-nonsense leading man (charismatic in his own way), and Pattinson scene-stealing spectacularly as his right-hand man. Debicki is also terrific as the leading lady, not quite a damsel-in-distress but a highly sympathetic victim of circumstance who lends proceedings a different kind of unpredictability.

Hence, while not everything about Tenet adds up, or delivers the 5-star thrills of Nolan’s very best work, there’s still no denying the level of its ambition, the mastery of its creativity or the quality of its performances, which combined more than compensate for the film’s overall shortcomings. Tenet remains great fun in spite of its flaws.