Salt In Action

Salt Movie Poster

Angelina Jolie as Salt

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Pass the Salt, in Exchange for a Realistic Script

Who knew that Russia is once again trying to infiltrate our government and is focusing vehemently on bringing down the USA as if we don’t have enough real problems in this country? This main, lame plot of Salt weaves preposterously through the entire film. Evelyn Salt, a CIA operative, played by Angelina Jolie is accused of being a Russian mole in the first 15 minutes of the film.

If you realize that the storyline is absurd then you might, at least, enjoy watching a tiny female actor in hand to hand combat with men twice her size definitely kicking some butt. She can also make bombs out of handy cleaning solutions, fire a machine gun, run full speed barefoot down a busy street, leap up walls, roll onto a moving semi-truck and leap to another while its racing down the interstate. Oh, wait a minute; I left out the wild motorcycle driving - darting in and out of traffic. Yes, she’s agent, ‘Unstoppable Salt.’

What’s lacking in Salt is believability, romance and character development. Jolie has been quoted as saying she wanted to play a female James Bond. Audiences could accept the Bond fantasy concept far better than a script that makes our government and CIA officers look like complete idiots. And what the Bond films have are sensual relationships between Bond and his women, not to mention the glamour. Don’t look for any of that in this film, its 100 minutes of Jolie being pursued, non-stop. By the end of the film you’ll still be wondering as the advertising campaign quips, “Who is Salt?”

The film opens with a brutal scene depicting Salt as a captive torture victim in the hands of North Korea. She’s scantly clad, black eyed and bloody as a rubber hose is forced into her mouth along with a liquid that appears to be gasoline. In (Three Kings, 1999) the same torture technique was used and we could clearly see that it was black oil, the same kind you’d have Jiffy Lube change in your car. She repeatedly states, “I am not a spy.”

From the looks of things, it appears she’s in a bit of a jam, but is soon rescued and taken back to America by agent Ted Winter (Liev Schreiber) where she’s immediately implicated as a KGB agent in deep undercover by Orlov (Daniel Olbrychski). Orlov claims that Salt's objective is to assassinate Russian President Matyveyev (Olek Krupa), who is in the United States attending the funeral of the U.S. Vice President.

Agent Salt’s initial reaction is to call home and check on her husband (a scientist who specializes in spiders). After numerous attempts of connecting to only an answering machine this situation adds to her agitation. And yes, she bolts!

Back at home, Salt finds that her husband has made a hasty disappearance which forces her to exit in the same manner; but not before collecting all of her cool spy gear. Who knew that spies have all of this equipment in their homes? She also takes some venomous serum from a spider that looked similar to the huge black widow I saw two weeks ago while in Sedona, AZ on the famous Pink Jeep rides. Thus, she’s on the run as the CIA, NYPD and FBI are already at her door. One final stop to a sweet little neighbor, played by a gifted child actor (Yara Shahidi), who I interviewed last spring for her staring role in Imagine That. She’s asked to care for Salt’s dog. After this brief interlude, she’s off to the races for the remainder of the movie.

Circumstances surrounding Salt’s true identify are muddled enough to make the mystery element intriguing; is she a double agent or even a triple-agent? Unfortunately, we know too early in the film and all that remains are non-stop action sequences with lack of character development or personal interaction. Many scenes are improbable, one example is when the Russian bad guy, Orlov, is lead away from the interrogation room without handcuffs and manages to kill two CIA agents while in the elevator using a knife attached to the toe of his shoe.

I did enjoy parts of this film, regardless of the ridiculous story line. I relished in seeing a woman as the action hero on the big screen. Angelina is beautiful, sexy and intriguing to watch. She makes being an action hero appear effortless. The stunts are fun to view and reminded me of a hodgepodge of films including the Indiana Jones series, Mission Impossible films and the Bourne movies. My hope is that screenwriters will upgrade the script and give Salt substance, as no doubt she’ll return. I really hope she does, as Salt has many spectacular movie-watching elements with director Phillip Noyce at the helm keeping a steady pace with the action.

Just note that this is a violent film and should by all intents and purposes have an “R” rating.

Sarah Adamson July 22, 2010