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Tenet · written by Christopher Nolan · 2020
Scene 270 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 truck drags them clear as the ground collapses; Ives pulls the Protagonist back from the edge with the algorithm secured.
Wheeler evacuates the last Blue team soldier as the extraction countdown hits zero.
Kat cleans the scene and dives from the yacht just as her earlier self arrives with Max, unnoticed.
This scene
On Mahir’s SPEEDING boat, Kat hands Mahir the diver’s bag and looks up ahead to the last light of day...
PROTAGONIST
(over radio)
Kat, you jumped the gun!
Mahir hands her the radio –
KAT
I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t let
him die thinking he’d won. And I
knew you’d find a way.
Silence. She glances Mahir, suddenly concerned –
KAT (CONT'D)
Wait, you found a way? We’re okay,
right?
PROTAGONIST
(over radio)
Yeah. We found a way. Be safe.
Mahir’s boat SPEEDS AWAY through the twilight...
...DRAGGING Sator’s body behind.