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Tenet · written by Christopher Nolan · 2020
Scene 267 of 275 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act three
An unnamed intelligence operative, recruited into a shadow war fought through time-inverted weapons and objects, teams with an enigmatic ally to stop a dying Russian oligarch from using technology gifted by a dying future to erase the present.
The Protagonist in his zone of comfort — a skilled, anonymous field operative, competent and confident inside the Kiev operation.
Broken by torture and 'killed,' he needs a new purpose; Fay offers one that transcends the nation-state loyalties that just got his team killed.
He enters the wholly unfamiliar situation of Tenet — the wind turbine, the password test, and Barbara's proof that time itself can run backward.
Mumbai, London, Oslo, and Amalfi — he adapts to the world of inverted physics and Sator's inner circle, paying costs (Kat's trust, his own safety) to get close to the target.
The Tallinn ambush succeeds — he gets what the mission wanted, extracting the plutonium '241' from the armored convoy.
He pays a heavy price for it — Kat is shot, the material is lost to Sator anyway, and he is left not knowing whether any of it mattered.
Recovered and re-briefed by Priya, he returns to a now-familiar situation — the Tenet operation — but changed, moving to Stalsk-12 with the full picture of what's at stake.
Kat shoots Sator and tips him into the sea moments before his suicide would have triggered the algorithm — the decisive turn the whole operation was built to reach.
The Protagonist opens the capsule to reveal the algorithm as Ives reacts to news that Kat killed Sator ahead of schedule.
Neil, at the truck, abandons the winch line rather than risk the men below as the countdown runs out.
The Protagonist and Ives are yanked out of the collapsing hole as the hypocentre detonates on schedule.
This scene
The truck DRAGS them along the rocky ground, away from the hole as... BOOOOM!!!! THE ROCKY GROUND BUCKLES WITH FORCE –
SMOKE and FLAMES BLAST up out of the hole in an ANGRY PLUME –
The ground around the hole COLLAPSES IN AN EVER-GROWING RADIUS –
The line SNAPS, leaving the Protagonist and Ives TUMBLING to a stop... The SUBSIDENCE approaches, SLOWING, SLOWING... the ground OPENS UP under the Protagonist – Ives GRABS HIM – the Protagonist has the algorithm in his hands, Ives PULLS him back onto solid ground...