Fun Salt Peppers the Screen with Action
Phillip Noyce’s Salt is a heck of a lot of fun. The man behind Harrison Ford’s Jack Ryan adventures Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger returns to the genre after a decade of making smaller, more personal films like The Quiet American and Rabbit-Proof Fence and does so with wickedly delightful glee, and while female Jason Bourne meets John McClane comparisons are inevitable this is still one ticking clock espionage thriller that definitely, and defiantly, stands on its own.
Angelina Jolie (center) in Salt © Sony Pictures
The first third is best. Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie) is a CIA operative who is fingered by mysterious defector Orlov (Daniel Olbrychski) as a Cold War spy tasked with assassinating current Russian President Matveyev (Olek Krupa). Intent on proving her innocence, she busts out of a secure facility with her boss Ted Winter (Liev Schreiber) and high level government agent Peabody (Chiwetel Ejiofor) hot on her tail.
This sequence of the picture is absolute nails. The action scenes are directed with confident assurance, Noyce making sure viewers can follow every move no matter what the speed it ends up traveling at. Even when things get silly (a series of freeway escapes is almost Loony Tunes in its absurdity) it’s all handled with such ingenuity it stays believable almost in spite of itself. These opening moments grow increasingly tense and exciting as the danger level blossoms, each twist and turn a sensational bit of slight of hand that held me breathlessly captivated.
At the center of it all is Jolie behaving like a cross between James Bond and Ellen Ripley. Like the former, there is no jam too big for her to find a way to escape from. Like the latter, she manages to do these things without sacrificing either her femininity (I love how she removes her heels just before the chase begins) or her intelligence. This is a woman who thinks first, acts seconds and lays people unconscious third, and even when she’s playing the mouse you just know the cat is still lurking quietly inside waiting patiently to turn the tables and pounce.
So screenwriter Kurt Wimmer’s (Equilibrium, Law Abiding Citizen) plot does grow increasingly ludicrous, and at a certain point Salt becomes a bit too much of an unstoppable cyborg and too little of a super-smart secret agent using her wits and her wiles to save the day. Additionally, the true identity of the real villain isn’t difficult to decipher, and even in light of current events it’s hard to believe a Russian mole could burrow themselves as far into the government hierarchy as this one does.
But this film is so just well put together, edited, scored and acted a lot of these things become moot. Noyce has assembled a picture so gosh darn entertaining even the missteps are a joy, and I imagine much like those 1990’s Jack Ryan efforts this is a thriller people will watch over and over with little problem at all. I love the way it moves, the way it breathes, and even a kind of obnoxious denouement setting up a potential (and probably inevitable) sequel didn’t annoy as much as it could have. No, Salt hits the spot peppering the screen with thrills, and in a summer filled with male dominated action pretenders here is one female contender ready to kung-fu the crown away from them and sit on the throne all by herself.
- Review reprinted courtesy of the SGN in Seattle
Film Rating: êêê (out of 4)
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