Salt is the latest action-thiller from Angelina Jolie (Tomb Raider series), veteran Tom Clancy director Phillip Noyce (Clear and Present Danger), and screenwriter Kurt Wimmer (Equilibrium, The Recruit).
Salt follows Jolie as Evelyn Salt a CIA-operative that might be a Soviet Double Agent. She might even be a Triple or Quadruple Agent. The action begins when a mysterious Russian defector walks into a CIA building, discredits Salt in seconds and she immediately begins to flee from a Soviet plot 20 years out of date. From here, the film begins a chase sequence that lasts until the credits. Among her pursuers are Liev Schreiber (X-Men Origins: Wolverine) and Chiwetel Ejiofor, CIA agents who were formerly worked with Salt. Along the way, there are twists and turns, ranging from completely obvious (do you ever truly question what country Salt is going to side with in the end?) to the ones that actually work… possibly in part by doing a slight of hand that keeps us quasi-guessing about Salt’s identity and our focus off of Twist B. That really is the gist of this movie. Chasing with some sequences that work well, and some that work less so. The film is never afraid to delve into the ridiculous and I found myself frequently saying “really?” but to its credit I was never bored. Possibly the most ludicrous sequence is CGI Salt jumping from rafter to rafter in an elevator shaft with moves that would give Spider-Man a run for his money. At least when she was jumping from semi-truck to semi-truck on a triple-decker overpass it looked like a real stuntwoman…
While the action is hit and miss, the film does take a few risks that set the film apart. Without giving too much away, the film wasn’t afraid to let the main character be a bad guy even if we know who she will side with in the final act. The other main “risk,” as many people have written about, is that the main character is female. Originally written for a man, Salt’s role is typical action hero bits, but made fresh by letting a female play the part. She pines over her beloved spouse, as many an action hero has done but seeing a woman in the role gives a little freshness what might have been stale material if the Action Hero of the Week played the role. I would, however caution that the film might not be quite as progressive as it sounds. Yes, many action heroes have been tortured on screen, Mel Gibson’s protagonists are famous for them, but here it seems that Salt sheds more blood than guys stabbed in the neck or shot at point blank range… it’s not that I have an issue with our heroine suffering wounds, it’s that the film disproportionately shows hers compared to those of the men in this film. You can probably read this a few ways, and I’d have to see the film again to offer any further insight… but regardless if there is some subtextual betrayal of our heroine, at the end of the day, a woman gets the chance to save the President. And that’s pretty cool.
Recommended for action-junkies who have already seen Inception. Fans of Jolie’s action career and B-Scripter Kurt Wimmer won’t be disappointed either. Everyone else can safely give it a pass.
(c)2010 beyond the films.
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