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Review: Salt

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25-Jul-2010 | Entertainment

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Angelina Jolie is back and she's deadlier than ever. She tackles foes simultaneously, concocts a bomb out of thin air McGyver-style, jumps from one moving vehicle to another effortlessly-she is one super heroine you don't want to mess with. Salt was initially written for a man in the lead character (that's Tom Cruise as Edwin. A Salt) but when Jolie showed great interest in playing the Bond-like Salt-she said she's not the Bond Girl type-the script was immediately altered and thus the lead became Evelyn Salt.

When the movie opens, a half-naked CIA officer Salt is being tortured by the North Korean army. She was eventually released after an exchange was made by her arachnologist husband (August Diehl). Life goes on until a Russian defector made a visit to the CIA office and reveals that there are Russian sleeper agents in the US waiting to be activated. And the name of the rogue agent is Evelyn Salt. Salt immediately goes on the run, using all her skills and years of experience as a covert operative to elude capture, including from his boss Bill Winter (Liev Schreiber) and counter-intelligence agent Peabody (Chiwetel Ejiofor) . Salt's efforts to prove her innocence only serve to cast doubt on her motives, as the hunt to uncover the truth behind her identity continues and the question remains: "Who Is Salt?"

Salt is a relentless action movie from start to end. It never takes time to breathe; when it does it's only to provide nostalgic flashback on her blooming romance with her soon-to-be-husband, which is basically inconsequential as it's shown only briefly. But at least what buoyed Salt from other summer' action offerings (such as the ridiculous and cartoonish The A Team and Knight & Day) is that at least it tries to be intelligent, aspiring to achieve the quality of political thrillers such as Patriot Games (which, incidentally, was directed by Salt's Phillip Noyce) or The Manchurian Candidate, and the fast-paced spy-on-the-run The Bourne Identity. Regardless whether the end result came out more like a big-screen version of political pot-boiler like 24-or even Alias-is another matter.

The movie has some relevance in what's going on in the news today, as just recently a group of people- assumed by their friends and neighbors to be living ordinary lives-were arrested by US federal prosecutors and accused of being part of a spy ring, living under false identities in deep cover in an effort to carry out assignments for Russia. It has been contended that Soviet Union, and then Russia, deployed covert agents masquerading as citizens in Western countries in the 1980s and 1990s as part of a network of intelligence operatives who would live under assumed names for fifteen to twenty years, or longer. When activated, these sleeper spies would then orchestrate "Day X," a chain of sabotage and terrorist attacks within the United States, the beginning of a large-scale war with Russia.

But, honestly, that part is just an excuse for a major star vehicle for Mrs. Pitt to look lethally fabulous in action. Although Salt can be quite superhuman at times, but at least the action is raw and bloody, especially near the implausible ending that takes place in a bunker beneath the White House. And I couldn't think of a better woman in Hollywood to do it than Angelina Jolie. Sure, some say it requires suspense of disbelief to see her as a secret agent as no secret agent look as conspicuous as the striking Jolie, even in disguise (unless she is disguised as a man, which she does here). Alas, Salt is Jolie's obvious bread and butter as she is the only credible big screen female action star in Hollywood right now. Though her dramatic chops is never doubted (see her subtle yet forceful performance as real life journalist Marianne Pearl in A Mighty Heart for example), her strings of hit movies have always been in the action genre, with Wanted, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and Tomb Raider being her most successful. And why shouldn't she be known primarily as an action star? It's fun to see a gorgeous woman butt-kicking her way to defeat a villain as it provides eye candy as well as--if it's made really good and believable--gratifying adrenaline rush. Salt as a woman is still made vulnerable with the fact that her main motives is to search for her missing husband, but unlike the giggly girrrl power of Charlie's Angels, Salt is ruthless and aggressive to the core. Who is Salt? Well, she's the one and only Angelina Jolie.