'Salt' Movie Review

Angelina Jolie reunites with her Bone Collector director Phillip Noyce for Salt, an action thriller about a CIA agent accused of being a spy. The timing of Salt's release couldn't have been better planned, as news of Russian spies operating in America hit just a month or so before Salt enters theaters. Director Noyce joked the 11 spies are actually all on Columbia Pictures' payroll, but it's just pure good luck for the studio that the very public uncovering of spies and the film's release hit so closely together.

Jam-packed with over-the-top, almost superhero-ish action rather than the Bourne-style, basically grounded in reality action, Salt is a weird mixture of serious spy thriller and flat-out, balls-to-the-wall summer action film. Jolie shows she still has what it takes when it comes to throwing her body into a physically demanding role - something she's better at than any other actress her age - and that Salt works at all is because of her dedication to making the unbelievable action scenes seem less far-fetched than they would have been in any other actress' hands. Still, despite Jolie's complete commitment to playing Evelyn Salt as a daredevil undaunted by any obstacle, there's so much we never find out about her character (or anyone she encounters) that it leaves a bit of an emotional void, detracting from the overall film.

The Story - A Bare Bones Version

Telling anything more than the very basics of the story would be risking revealing a potential spoiler. Salt's a salty cat and mouse thriller peppered with twists and the less you know going in, the better.

Jolie stars as CIA Agent Evelyn Salt, a tough as nails professional who we meet as she's being held and tortured in North Korea. But no matter what they do to her, she doesn't break. Salt won't admit she's a spy and it looks like she's in for a long stint in a tiny cell. However, her CIA superior, Ted Winter (Liev Schreiber), unexpectedly shows up for a prisoner exchange. Salt, knowing this goes against every rule the US government's set up regarding spies, is initially shocked and then emotionally overwhelmed when Winter tells her the exchange was instigated by her husband, Mike (August Diehl), an expert on spiders (his profession plays into the plot, but I'm not disclosing how). He hounded everyone he could think of until they finally agreed to do something to bring her home. She's grateful and touched, and less like a hard-nosed agent at that point in time than at any other in the film.

The warm and fuzzy moment flies by and then it's back to the serious business of protecting America. When a Russian defector named Orlov (Daniel Olbrychski) shows up to turn himself in promising to reveal an important secret, Salt (an expert on Russia) is given the task of doing the initial interrogation. Orlov claims there's a Russian spy within the CIA who's going to kill the Russian president at the funeral of the American vice president. And the spy's name is...Evelyn Salt.

So, is she or isn't she? That's the question audiences have to figure out over the course of the 100 minute running time as Salt races around Washington, DC at manic speed, jumping from bridges, leaping between moving semis, and basically putting the physical prowess of Batman and the escape skills of Houdini to shame.

The Acting and the Bottom Line

Jolie is such a commanding presence on screen that everyone else around her in Salt stays in the background, with the exception of Schreiber who's strong enough to go toe-to-toe with her in the film's more dramatic moments. Even Chiwetel Ejiofor slips into also-ran mode as a throw-away supporting player in what's thoroughly Jolie's film.

Salt was originally scripted by Kurt Wimmer with a male in the lead (Tom Cruise), but had to be reworked when the main character underwent a sex change. Would Cruise have been better as Edwin Salt than Jolie is as Evelyn Salt? Who knows? Jolie's just as capable of handling the physical demands of the role as Cruise would have been, maybe even better judging by Knight and Day, so the sex change didn't harm the production.

Although some of the action sequences are jaw-dropping, beautifully executed stunts, the problem is that in a story that's supposed to be grounded in reality, the stunts are so unbelievably outrageous - Jolie leaps off bridges without so much as a scratch on her body or a smudge on her clothing - the dialogue-driven scenes hold little weight because the action breaks from that reality. The premise of a spy ready to kill a Russian president in order to set off a world war isn't all that far-fetched, but by surrounding that plot line with chase scenes nearly as crazy as in comic book inspired superhero films, it confuses the message. A little more time spent on character development and a little less time spent showing what a bad-ass Jolie by way of totally unbelievable stunts would have helped immensely. As it is, Salt's okay summer fun though disappointing and ultimately forgettable.

GRADE: C+ 

Salt was directed by Phillip Noyce and is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action.

Theatrical Release: July 23, 2010

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