“So I passed out and my dickhead mates wrote on my face…”
I don’t know if I actually wanted to watch this movie or if it was a favour to my missus, in saying that as the movie started she leaned to me and said “I’m only watching this as a favour to you.”
So exactly who the fuck wants to watch this stupid thing?
Too Late, already mortgaged the house again to buy popcorn and a large Coke.
The skinny, tattooed and non-bearded half of Brangelina is Salt, specifically Evelyn Salt. We open the film with her bloodied and bruised, lying on the floor in what we later learn is a Korean cell, she pleads with her captors “I am not a spy! I am not a spy!”
But Salt you am a liar.
After her release and back in the CIA, Salt lives in an apartment with her German husband and his pet spiders, she seems to be rocking a deskjob for the moment, her boss is a nice guy named Ted (Liev Schrieber).
It is anniversary night and she has plans to be with hubby Michael, as she leaves for the night things go off the rails a little as she is stopped at the door to assist with the interrogation of a supposed Russian defector, Salt tells Ted “I have 25 minutes”, I wish, the next scene takes almost every one of those in one of the more long-winded “OK Here is the entire plot” speeches I can remember.
The 25 second version has the Russian informing Salt in the interrogation room that there are many Russian sleeper-agents dotted across America, all with specific orders to strike at appropriate times. One of those agents is primed to strike within days at the funeral of the American Vice President in New York.
The catch? That agent, he claims: is Salt.
Dun-dun-dunnnnnnnnnn!
Now that should be enough to either whet your appetite or put you to sleep so I’ll leave the details there. Salt spends the next hour plus running from almost everything and everyone, people from all sides point guns at her and she gets punched, kicked, hit by cars and leaps off bridges at various points, all without a scratch.
Until that is she gets shot in the hip. Owees you might think, but then you’re not SuperSalt the secret agent, a carefully placed sanitary napkin and we’re back on the case ready to get punched kicked and to leap away again.
It probably helps matters that Salt is a master of everything, hand to hand combat, weapons use and covert operations, 45 seconds of planning is apparently enough for her to get through the most painstakingly devised barricades and security systems, 2 minutes is enough to outthink the entire US Intelligence.
I grew increasingly frustrated at the number of times the pursuers had Salt in plain sight and yet she continually got away, I muttered “Just shoot the bitch” on many occasions but no-one listened. Also, why do guards continually run around so that Salt has to keep ducking into nooks and crannies while they go past? Stand at the end of a hallway, away from manholes above, point your gun: shoot when necessary. Game over.
This film is an indictment on the abilities of both the US and Russian Intelligence and Defense agencies, Salt goes where she want when she wants. She even gets caught when she wants, it’s all part of her master plan.
The thing I must say that she is no master at is disguise, after an elaborate makeup job she manages to elude the scrutiny of hundreds of trained agents all focussed on finding her when she walks freely among them – when to me she looked just like Angelina Jolie with black hair that was exactly the same style and length as it was the day before, only blonde.
Later in the film she masquerades as a male officer and I felt like screaming at the screen “But she looks exactly like Jolie, only a bit weirder and somehow more feminine!”, it proved too elaborate a heckle for me to use.
I dunno, the issue that I had with Salt wasn’t that it was inadequate or bad, but just how it wasn’t too much of anything. There were no bits that I felt like discussing later that weren’t pointing out flaws, and no flaws that were large enough to allow me to write the film off as terrible.
It is all so… adequate.
There is nothing wrong with Salt, it is a perfectly serviceable action-thriller with a solid cast and some good sequences. Jolie is OK as a lead and the few hand to hand scenes look believable enough, I wish she had a little more range than not blinking to show her stress levels, and I really wish that she might puff a little or dare I say it? – sweat, after the long chase scenes.
But no, she casually walks off into the scenery, makeup and hair perfectly in place; 38kg of tabloid attracting, multiple kid having, slightly-past-her-prime-but-no-one-will-admit-it-yet-until-a-real-successor-shows-up (sorry Megan Fox you aren’t cutting it), big-lipped, too skinny (especially the arm veins – gross) celebrity, despite the fact that she hasn’t made a really good film in… well ever.
Salt is serviceable as a preposterous action flick, anyone will see the ending coming a mile away, and the fact that it less sets up than practically announces a sequel is coming is perhaps Hollywood getting a little ahead of themselves. This was OK and killed a couple hours without hurting my brain one way or another – but again?
I hope they have a big idea in the bank that makes it worthwhile.
Final Rating – 6.5 / 10. Just middling. Good mostly, bad not much, but awesome? Never. The Doctor won’t tell you to quit this Salt, but take only in strict moderation.
