Salt Review

I can’t believe I enjoyed Salt! It’s 2012 AND The Expendables all over again where I know the film is bad but I’m enjoying it nonetheless.

In fairness, Salt (despite that ridiculous title) is slightly more credible than the other two films mentioned but it’s cut from similar cloth and essentially boils down to Hollywood nonsense that is more fun than it should be. Angelina Jolie plays CIA agent Evelyn Salt, who is forced to go on the run when a Russian defector literally walks in off the street to divulge information about sleeper Russian agents in place in the various American institutions who are about to initiate “Day X” a day when the agents become active and, through a series of devastating terrorist attacks, bring down the entire US. The defector identifies Salt as one such agent and announces, in CIA headquarters, that she is going to kill the Russian president later that day. Salt is forced to go on the run and ends up in a series of escalating action set pieces that require her to leap from roof tops, speeding lorries, infiltrate a massively guarded funeral service and, ultimately, break into The White House itself.

Angelina Jolie seems to be single-handedly making the case for the credibility of female action heroes and she does it exceptionally well. Much has been made of the fact she did most of her own stunts and Jolie is able to sell all the various high jumps and kicks, her patented leaping-against-a-wall-so-as-to-push-herself-off-it-into-a-bad-guy’s-face move being particularly awesome. Actually, I say “bad guys” but most of Salt’s victims are poor policemen or government agents of one kind or another who, one assumes, aren’t bad guys at all, merely getting in the way of what Salt has to do. On top of Jolie's physical prowess, seasoned thriller director Philip Noyce handles all the various set pieces with considerable flair and gives them a sense of reality that, for the most part, works quite well. Being about three steps ahead of any film is crippling, but in a thriller it’s disastrous, so extra kudos to Noyce and Jolie for making Kurt Wimmer’s pretty pedestrian screenplay (complete with ropey Hollywood dialogue, “We’re gonna crash this party”) come alive as well as they do. The film tries to keep Salt’s motivations for what she is doing vague, her guilt or innocence constantly a question. This all leads to a “surprise” ending that won’t be much of a surprise for anyone who has seen a single Hollywood thriller before. In fairness to the script, the Day X notion is a fun conspiracy, even if it is told in flashback. Oh and speaking of flashbacks, the moments where we get to see Jolie's relationship with husband August Diehl are a waste of time. And I wonder if his job as spider specialist is going to become important at any stage... One or two moments, (Jolie going undercover as a man being the worst offender) threaten to derail the film but there is always another fun chase or fight on the horizon to bring you back onside. British actor Chiwetol Ejiofor continues his run of big budget movies as Agent Peabody (Seriously, who the hell came up with these names?!?) the agent charged with bringing her in and Leiv Schrieber is wholly insufficient as her old friend and fellow agent Ted Winter (slightly better but somehow I would imagine someone called Ted Winter as a supply teacher rather than a crack CIA operative). But it’s Jolie’s show and she really delivers and props the film up when it’s losing steam.

I’ve had a run of dodgy action movies of late with Salt, The A Team, Expendables and Knight and Day, which I just realised I never reviewed; (it’s terrible 2.5/10. There you go!) It’s nice to see stand alone old fashioned action thrillers making a return (thank you Jason Bourne for that) and Salt was definitely my favourite. Of course, if it makes enough money we’ll be seeing more Evelyn Salt on our big screens which would be no bad thing in my view. Salt 2: Rock Salt, Salt 3-D: Sodium Free. The possibilities are endless.

7/10