Ness's agency is consistently high — he keeps choosing to fight Capone even as the situation worsens — but it fluctuates in a revealing way. Agency dips when Ness follows Malone's lead (the mentor provides direction, not Ness) and rises when he acts independently. The widest gap comes in Act Four: after Wallace and Malone are murdered, control crashes to zero but agency surges — throwing Nitti off the roof, confronting the judge, forcing the jury switch. The film's argument is that moral agency doesn't require control; it requires willingness to act when the cost is highest.