Salt, Starring Angelina Jolie, Live Schrieber and Chiwetel Ejiofor; directed by Phillip Noyce
Angelina Jolie is back in action and once again proves she’s at the top of the pack. In a role originally written for Tom Cruise, before he jumped shipped for the more mediocre Knight & Day, Jolie has a blast kicking butt, tossing grenades and stabbing bad Russians with broken vodka bottles and taking names later. The movie is preposterous at every turn, but so are the Bond and Bourne flicks, and it’s about time a lady spy joined the ranks.
CIA agent Evelyn Salt must go on the run—and in her pencil skirt no less—when a Russian defector shows up and accuses her of being a KGB sleeper spy. The defector himself, Orlov, also manages to flee, either revealing how bad the CIA’s security is—or that Russian-trained sleeper agents are just that good.
Sony’s trailers smartly lead you to believe that the Day X attack on the president is the climax, when it is only really an Act II complication, with plenty more action and plot twists to come. Despite the absurdity of the plot, the action set pieces themselves are very credible, using old-fashioned stunts over CGI copouts.
Angelina leaps through elevator shafts, out of speeding subway trains and across the roofs of speeding transport trucks on the freeway and it all looks good.
In making Edwin Salt a lady, Kurt Wimmer doesn’t just add boobs and stilettos to the male spy archetype. In fact, Evelyn tosses the stilettos in the early getaway sequence, and uses her feminine assets in MacGyver-esque fashion to constantly keep the upper edge. Where before has Mr. Bond used a tampon to patch up a battle wound, or removed his panties to blind side a surveillance camera?
The script itself has balls. Knowing this flick has franchise written all over it, we know Evelyn herself is safe, but don’t expect the same for the rest. The bodycount is high and so are the stakes. By killing off folks close to Salt, Wimmer gives this character real reason to stand up and fight and us audience folks reason to care. Well more reason than Angelina’s guns and to see how she looks disguised as a man (the answer is gross!).
Salt is relentlessly paced from the first breakout, but the action is always easy to follow. The twists aren’t easy to predict, but then, some are so outlandish, that’d be impossible anyway. Needless to say, Salt is pure adrenaline rush fun, and it’s nice to see Jolie in a thriller worthy of her talents.
Rating: Four Stars out of five
