TENET

John David Washington    Robert Pattinson    Elizabeth Debicki     Kenneth Branagh    

 Michael Caine     Diimple Kapadia     Denzil Smith

     Tenet has all the hallmarks of a blockbuster—established filmmakers, actors, and a riveting story with themes of mind-ripping, intriguing, violence.  It certainly does all that.  What it doesn’t do is give the viewer time to reflect on any current, compelling issues that we should be concerned about nowadays, or probe personal relationships that make them seem to matter.  It’s more of an almost formulaic activation of tropes seen many times before.  This version seems to have been intended to tease us with time travel, frustrated love, and heroic battles between the hero and unrecognized/mysterious adversaries.

     The unnamed protagonist (Washington), a CIA agent, is recruited to match wits with a terrorist, Sator (Branagh) intent on destroying the world.  The first task is to actually come in contact with the man, not a direct route.  The Prospect meets Sir Crosby (Caine) for lunch who informs him cryptically about Tenet, a shadow organization attempting to save the whole world from destruction.  The Protagonist will be a part of that effort in his new assignment.  To achieve his task, the Protagonist tries at first to go through the wife of the infamous Russian Oligarch, Andrei Sator, Katherine “Kat)  (Debicki), an art dealer.  But this is with the intrusion of a fellow agent Neil (Pattinson), who appears and re-appears as a helper and, seemingly at times, a foe.  

In due time, the protagonist has a clear picture of what he is up against, in terms of arms dealers, their facilitators, and a world-wide plan.  

     Typical of writer/director Christopher Nolan, he plays around with time; and in this case, time inversion, which the evil Sator is trying to perfect for his own use.  It allows for something dropped to jump back up in one’s hand and cars to travel backwards on busy freeways—lending high-tension moments to the plot, along with well choreographed hand-to-hand combat and mental/physical cruelty.  More thrilling is a reverse bungee jump up the outside of a skyscraper.  (In a filmmaking aside:  The two actors start the jump, then stuntmen take over without a noticeable cut in the frame.

     Adding to the excellence in craft, Hoyte van Hoytema’s cinematographic feats maintain breathless action, accompanied by Ludwig Goransson’s always apt score. John David Washington is coming into his own as an actor earning action-figure status.  He mixes the heroic with sincerity and credibility, which adds to his appeal.  The stately Elizabeth Debicki plays Sator’s wounded wife with grace and expressive femininity, using her beautiful eyes to break through her mystique and help make her sympathetic.  Kenneth Branagh succeeds in filling his character with narcissistic loathsomeness making him easy to hate.  Bollywood’s well known star Dimple Kapadia does an admirable job in portraying a complex, woman with power.

     For Fans of Christopher Nolan Tenet will likely be satisfying and fun; others, as I did, may find it somewhat tedious to follow and feel impatience at the prolonged combat scenes.

 

Go on a time-inverted journey in Christopher Nolan’s newest thriller.

Grade:  B-                                    By Donna R. Copeland 

BLACKKKLANSMAN

John David Washington     Adam Driver     Laura Harrier     Ryan Eggold     Topher Grace

Ryan Eggold     Jasper Paakkonen     Paul Walter Hauser     Harry Belafonte     Alec Baldwin

     Spike Lee has given us a chilling, eloquent picture about race relations in America, based on an autobiographical account by Ron Stallworth, a former police officer in Colorado Springs, Colorado, who led an undercover operation to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970’s.  It plays like a suspense-filled thriller, with the viewer sweating through many scenes where it is uncertain whether cover will be blown and whether characters will be killed.

     Ron Stallworth (adeptly played by Washington) is the first black police officer in Colorado Springs; to be a policeman was always his dream—particularly if he could be an undercover agent.  His first assignment is as a records clerk, which he loathes; then the opportunity comes to cover a speech by a controversial figure at a local campus, Stokely Carmichael, who has changed his name to Kwami Ture, a name that sticks in the throats of the law enforcement community.  Ron does such a good job, he is assigned to the intelligence service when he comes up with a plan to go undercover in the just-forming Ku Klux Klan in Colorado Springs.  

     After answering an ad for recruiting members for the local KKK by telephone, he convinces his police captain to send in a white police officer, Flip Zimmerman (Driver), to pose as “Ron Stallworth” and learn what the Klan is up to in the area. Stallworth actually calls David Duke (Grace), “Grand Wizard” of the Klan, to expedite his membership card. Duke is so impressed with Stallworth, he goes to Colorado to induct him personally into the Klan.

     In addition to the tension surrounding the undercover operation and maintaining anonymity, there is also conflict in the romantic relationship Ron has rather naively formed with one of the black protestors, Patrice (Harrier), who looks exactly like Angela Davis, and who is constantly trying to find out who he really is. There is also the Klansman Felix (spookily played by Paakonen) who is suspicious of Flip, (he thinks he has spotted him as a Jew) and performs tests of his identity and commitment. We’re also on edge, waiting to see if any of the threats picked up by the police department and the FBI(?) will come to fruition.

     BlacKkKlansman will most likely come to be considered as Spike Lee’s best film so far.  It won the Gran Prix at Cannes this year, and Lee received a standing ovation at its premier.       This seems well deserved in consideration of the overall production including screenplay, direction, actors, music, and cinematography—and its topical relevance.  One of the jewels is the juxtaposition of a Klan meeting showing a disgusting racist film and a black protest meeting, in which an account delivered by Harry Belefonte tells about the horrific mistreatment of a black child.

     As stunning as the film is, it is long; and there are a few scenes that could have been shortened, and one at the end that could have been cut altogether; it’s a telephone call informing a major character about the law enforcement subterfuge.  Perhaps this actually occurred (I have not read Stallworth’s book), but it looks more like the filmmakers simply wanted to vent their spleen.

BlacKkKlansman is a meritorious addition to the films that are making statements about us that we should take seriously.

Grade:  A                                    By Donna R. Copeland