Movie Information
Before becoming a CIA officer, Evelyn Salt swore an oath to duty, honor, and country. She will prove loyal to these when a defector accuses her of being a Russian sleeper spy. Salt goes on the run, using all her skills and years of experience as a covert operative to elude capture, protect her husband, and stay one step ahead of her colleagues at the CIA
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Rated: [M]
Cinema Release: 19 Aug 2010
Director: Phillip Noyce
Running Time: 100 mins
Stars: Angelina Jolie, Liev Schreiber, Chiwetel Ejiofor
IBDb
Movie Review
FAMOUSLY known as the spy thriller Tom Cruise walked away from because he wanted to keep his powder dry for Mission: Impossible 4, Salt is not out to reinvent any of them there wheels.
But hey, aside from Inception and the other occasional deviation from the norm, what movie these days really is out to expand the medium?
What Salt does have working in its favour - and boy, does she work hard throughout - is Angelina Jolie.
With the screenplay retro-fitted to accommodate a last-minute change of gender for the protagonist, Jolie is challenged to carry this big-budget actioner virtually all on her own.
Deploying both sheer grit and considerable screen presence, the star of the show takes Salt to a level that Cruise would not have been capable of.
This is not to say this film is anything resembling a classic. Salt just does what a post-Bourne espionage affair should, with a minimum of fuss and a maximum dose of adrenalin.
Jolie plays Evelyn Salt, a long-serving CIA operative relishing the relative stability of a desk job after several dangerous tours in the field.
A seemingly placid day at HQ is rudely interrupted by the arrival of a Russian defector (Daniel Olbrychski). Evelyn is handed the task of interrogating the mystery man. He says that he has valuable information to trade for his political asylum: advance word on a plot to kill the Russian president, who is visiting the US.
As the cross-examination comes to end, the defector announces he can even name who will pull the trigger on the politician. Someone by the name of Evelyn Salt.
As an initial twist with which to open a movie, this is ripping, lean-forward stuff. So too is what immediately follows.
With her peers unwilling to accept her side of the story - let alone actually even hear it - Evelyn turns rogue and breaks open her old skill-set to clear her name. Or at least that is what the agents chasing her all over Washington, Winter (Liev Schreiber) and Peabody (Chiwetel Ejiofor), assume she is doing.
However, after the Russian president is indeed shot dead, and Evelyn Salt is found at the scene of the crime, no one knows quite what to think. And that applies to the viewers of Salt as well.
It would be unfair to delve any further into the plot of Salt beyond its intriguing first act.
However, I can assure you that the twists, turns and what-the-heck moments are in bountiful supply right through to the closing credits.
Maintaining a breakneck pace without diminishing a compelling story is a difficult task for most filmmakers, but not Australian director Phillip Noyce.
The need for speed and the sting of the tale are perfectly balanced at all times.
However, most plaudits for the relative success of Salt as a run-gun-and-stun experience must reside with Angelina Jolie.
Witnessing the ferocious physicality Jolie applies to her character - which puts a majority of contemporary male action heroes to shame - is worth the price of admission alone.
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