Salt
Well, I have to say, I didn’t quite expect this movie. Watching it, it would’ve been less interesting if Tom Cruise had starred in it being directed by Michael Mann…and not just because Angelina Jolie is so much hotter than Tom Cruise.
Truth is, the combination of Jolie with director Philip Noyce (whose delivered smart Hollywood films like “Patriot Games” and “Clear and Present Danger” along with off-Hollywood powerhouses like “The Quiet American” and “Rabbit-Proof Fence”) working on a smart and action-fueled script by Kurt Wimmer (“Equilibrium”- yes; “Law-Abiding Citizen”- ok; “Ultraviolet”- no thanks) is a combustible one, especially when Jolie is a CIA agent on her way to a desk job when a Russian defector comes in with the story of a sleeper spy from Russia who’ll be assassinating the Russian president in a trip to New York. The operatives name? Evelyn Salt.
If you’ve seen the previews, you know that’s Jolie’s character’s name, and you know that it leads her on a chase to clear her name and find her husband, who was responsible for saving her from a North Korean prison and endless torture sessions two years earlier. But Wimmer’s screenplay is trickier than that, and the results are suspenseful and surprising. Salt is a female Jason Bourne, only without that pesky amnesia, a loyal defender in fellow CIA agent Ted Winter (the superb Liev Scheiber, who’s turned into a major go-to character actor the past decade), and a mysterious NSA agent named Peabody (Chiwetel Ejiofor, another character actor ace up Noyce’s sleeve) who wants to get down to the truth.
What that truth is I’ll let the movie tell you. Just know that Noyce is in top-poly thriller mode here even if the story jumps several sharks (and between more than a few trucks) along the way. Even with the recent headlines of Russian spies caught in the States, the story seems pretty far-fetched. Thankfully, Noyce keeps the action movie for 100 bracing minutes (and props to cinematographer Robert Elswit and composer James Newton Howard for exemplary work), and Jolie keeps us glued to the screen every step of the way. She’s sexy, smart, and sensational at kicking ass. Even when it looks like she’s trapped, she always finds a way out of it. Same goes for her movie.
