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An amalgamation of the Bourne series, the Bond series and the Mission: Impossible films, 2010's Salt is exactly the type of action-thriller you'd expect to witness during summertime - it's loaded with clichéd characters, a patently silly story, and lots of ridiculous action set-pieces which defy all known limitations of physics and pain tolerance. And due to the fact that the film takes itself with the poker-face seriousness of the Bourne pictures, there are several serious problems hampering Salt. Yet, unlike a lot of recent blockbusters, this film is almost saved by two things: competent craftsmanship and terrific star power. While the film does not possess much replay value since a lot of interest is hinged on not knowing character intentions, the initial experience is still a lot of fun.
Angelina Jolie stars as the titular Evelyn Salt; a CIA agent who's first seen being tortured in North Korea before being traded back to America at the insistence of her boyfriend Mike (Diehl). Two years later, Salt is happily married and has settled into a life of domesticity. But when a Russian defector (Olbrychski) fingers Salt as a deep-cover Russian agent planted in American to participate in an uprising, Salt goes on the run in order to clear her name. According to the Russian defector, Salt's objective is to assassinate the Russian President (Krupa), who is in the United States to attend the funeral of the U.S. Vice President.
Before Angelina Jolie was attached to the project, the film was originally designed as a vehicle for Tom Cruise (who reportedly decided to star in Knight and Day instead). Yet, Jolie's involvement is a true benefit, and she managed to believably bring Evelyn Salt to life. Granted, it would have been interesting to see Cruise in the lead role, but Jolie is perfectly acceptable as Salt. Added to this, she's a welcome and refreshing change of scenery after so many male action heroes over recent years. Also of note in the cast is Liev Schreiber as a CIA agent who claims Salt is innocent, and Chiwetel Ejiofor as the counter-intelligence official whose duty is to investigate the claims against Salt. Jolie, Schreiber and Ejiofor are all well-suited for their respective roles.
The key mystery element of the narrative - is Salt a double-agent or a triple-agent? - keeps the film compelling and interesting. Alas, the answer is revealed before the midpoint is reached. From here on in, Salt falls into the category of pure eye candy, with the spy aspects being pushed aside in favour of spectacular stunts and lengthy chases. Phillip Noyce directed Patriot Games back in the early '90s, so one would think he'd be knowledgeable about building suspense, yet no suspense is present here - the film is just a series of bombastically-soundtracked crashes and bangs. As the focus was on pace, exposition is kept to a minimum, though this can be considered a positive since the dialogue usually consists of clichéd action movie speak. Eventually, the movie wraps up with a perfunctory and somewhat unsatisfying conclusion. Salt frankly feels like a pilot episode for a mini-series rather than a self-contained feature-length movie, since 95 minutes was not enough time to explore all the narrative possibilities. For instance, the relationship between Evelyn and her husband should have real resonance, but it comes across as an afterthought and a pace-killer.
Salt may be a Jason Bourne clone from a conceptual standpoint, but, to the credit of director Noyce, it's not a stylistic clone. Eschewing the almost incomprehensible hyper-kineticism of a lot of contemporary action films (a trend made popular by Paul Greengrass), the action is often crisp and clear. There is plenty of action throughout the film and it rarely relents, but all the set-pieces laugh furiously in the face of reason and physics as the material progressively grows more preposterous and cartoonish until every ounce of interior logic is destroyed. In the climax Salt resembles Spider-Man as she manages to break into the bunker beneath the White House by jumping and sliding down an elevator shaft (the wirework is painfully obvious) before knocking out a few guards and slipping through a door before it shuts. Salt also manages to make the assassination of the Russian President look insanely simple. It becomes difficult to take the film seriously at all. This would be fine if it was an intentional parody of spy-thrillers or if it had a camp sensibility, yet the tone argues that it wants to be taken seriously. There's no humour. It's a huge problem.
Another key problem which hinders Salt is the PG-13 rating. This is perhaps the most violent PG-13 in recent memory, but the kills are all much too "clean". Thus, this is another unfortunate instance of Hollywood taking inherently adult material and, by toning down the blood and swearing, transforming it into teen-friendly fodder. Still, Salt is an enjoyable blockbuster. Make no mistake, this is nothing more than cinematic junk food, but at least it's not the type of cheapo shit that leaves you wishing you had never indulged in the first place.
6.2/10
