Salt

Here's a tip for enjoying Salt - Check your brain at the door, and never look back. This is a ludicrous and convoluted espionage thriller with enough double agents, political plotting, and scheming Russians plotting to bring back the Soviet Union to fill two or three spy novels. But that's not the appeal here. The appeal is the non-stop, fast-paced action. It's expertly filmed and staged, and is comprised of mostly physical stunt work, instead of CG. Good thing, too, since stunt work makes up pretty much 80% of the film.

The movie stars Angelina Jolie, an actress who is certainly no stranger to kicking butt on the big screen, but doesn't get to do it very often. She brings a lot of intensity here, not just when she's fighting off attackers, but also when she's diving off bridges onto the backs of passing semis, running across the back of vans, skillfully leaping down elevator shafts, climbing along narrow building ledges, and making one narrow escape after another. It's been widely reported that the role was originally written as a man, and was to be played by Tom Cruise, until he backed out to do Knight and Day. I think this worked out best for the film. Cruise would not be able to convey the mystery that Jolie brings to the role of Evelyn Salt. She is an enigma, and somewhat of an intentional blank slate. We're not supposed to be sure what to think of her, or who side she's on.

And that's the whole point of the film. It pulls us in so many directions, making us wonder where it is taking us, and just who Salt is. She starts the film as a happily married woman, albeit one who works for the CIA, and who spent time in a North Korean prison, as we witness in an opening prologue. Evelyn's only thought is celebrating her anniversary with her husband that evening, until a Russian defector named Orlov (Daniel Olbrychski) is brought into headquarters, and labels her as an undercover KGB agent to her superiors during an interview. She immediately finds herself under suspicion by Agent Peabody (Chiwetel Ejiofor), and even her partner and best friend, Ted Winters (Liev Schreiber), who supports her at first, but soon finds he doesn't know what to think. According to Orlov, Evelyn Salt is a spy on a mission to kill the Russian President, who is in New York City to attend the funeral of the U.S. Vice President. When Salt finds that no one will listen to her, she is forced to run.

But why is she running? Is she truly innocent and scared, or does she have something to hide? The movie is intentionally vague, and leads us in various directions. Sure, we don't believe for a second that a major summer blockbuster will end with Angelina Jolee murdering the Russian President, and bringing world-wide chaos and war, but the movie gives us plenty of reasons to believe a variety of theories surrounding her character. If she is a heartless assassin, then why does she immediately head home after escaping from CIA headquarters to look for her husband, and rescue her pet dog (whom she hands off to a little girl who lives in the same building). If she is innocent, then why is she carrying all these high tech weapons and tools, and why does she head straight for the cathedral where the Vice President's funeral is being held? Is she trying to prove her innocence, or is it for something else? The movie is clever in the way it casts its heroine (anti-heroine?) in such a vague light that we don't know what to think of her, or even what her motives are. Sure, the answer is kind of easy to figure out by some point in the film, but it's still a fun ride.

However, Salt chooses to keep its intriguing spy thriller aspects at a minimum, opting instead to be an all-out chase action picture. As soon as Salt is fingered as the deep cover agent, the movie pretty much never slows down. Normally, I would grow bored with this approach, but director Phillip Noyce knows how to keep things constantly moving, without making it seem like overkill. In fact, the plot is really just one big excuse for the characters to run across Washington D.C., to New York, and then back to Washington. And the sequences take place in everywhere from heavy traffic, to elevator shafts, to the crypts under a church, and even through top secret areas of the White House, where characters duke it out in a climactic brawl as a big clock counts down to nuclear annihilation. Yes, it's ridiculous, and the movie asks us to suspend our disbelief more times than probably necessary, but it works. There's an art to popcorn entertainment such as this, and Noyce has it down. The action is tightly edited, and as ridiculous as it gets, it never fails to impress.

I guess you could call Salt a live action video game. The characters are thinly drawn, and many exist for the lead heroine to kick, punch, and shoot as she runs from one location to the next. But once again, I surprisingly did not mind here. The actors are better than the norm that we get in these kind of movies, and stunts and production values are better than average. That seems to make all the difference. It also helps that the action and car chase sequences are not mundane in the slightest. They're over the top, but in such a way that we actually find ourselves a little thrilled. As someone who has grown tired of movies that build themselves entirely around car chases and shoot outs, I was surprised to find myself so involved in the action. It proves my theory that even the most tired of cliches can still work when they are executed with skill.

And this is a skillful movie for what it is. It's an action thriller through and through, with a few interesting ideas tossed in for good measure. Yeah, Salt could have been smarter. So what? That's what Inception is playing in theaters for. (And I do suggest you see that before this.) This movie serves a need, and serves it very well, I might add. If anything, this movie shows just how so many similar films went wrong, and does everything right.

See the movie times in your area or buy the DVD at Amazon.com!

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