Australian Penthouse

SALT
Director: Philip Noyce
Stars: Angelina Jolie, Liev Schreiber, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Daniel Olbrychski
Sony

IF ever there were an argument in favour of formulaic film-making, Angelina Jolie is the sum total of its premise.

You give that woman a gun, an enemy and a reason to pout and what you end up with is compulsive viewing, every time.

This iteration of the formula, Salt, opens with Evelyn Salt (Jolie) bleeding from the face, stripped down to her underwear, and pleading with her captors to believe she’s not a spy. Not a spoiler: She is a spy, and for that reason they seem unwilling to believe her.

At this stage we are a grand one minute in to the film, and the whispered comparisons between Salt and the movies that came before it can already be heard in erratic spurts. The people behind me and to my left think the whole thing is immediately reminiscent of The Bourne Identity. Evidently, the people behind them disagree, because the whispering noises change very quickly from lofty self-indulgent opinion to the frantic and resolute hostility of an affronted film buff.

By the time the people to my left get up and move away from their detractors, Jolie is being freed. We are introduced to her partner at the CIA, Ted Winter (Liev Schreiber), and her husband Mike Krause (August Diehl). We find out it was a flashback.

In the present day, Salt and Winter are dealing with a defected Russian, Orlov (Daniel Olbrychski), who is claiming all hell’s about to break loose in the United States and that Evelyn Salt is the Russian sleeper agent who’s going to invoke it.

This is where the movie really begins. Counter-intelligence officer William Peabody (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is privvy to the accusation and demands Salt be contained somewhere until things are sorted out. Instead of complying when they lock her in the interrogation room, she MacGuyvers her way out of the heavily-secured CIA building, and the pace doesn’t slow down ever again.

You can never be sure whether the allegations about Salt are true, because she goes on the run with seemingly little provocation, kills a Russian President and is a generally villainous bad arse.

And as far as action films go, that uncertainty is a decent accomplishment. Salt manages to keep you guessing, and takes it even further with a twist that not many people pre-empted. Moreover, and perhaps more pertinently, it has all the covert ops, explosions, car chases, grenades and righteous killings you could hope for.

My one complaint is that, at times, it just becomes too ridiculous.

To someone’s credit, the production notes do talk about how far-fetched a lot of this movie is, and explicitly state Jolie was brought in to lend enough credibility to the fantastical situations to allow people to suspend their disbelief.

It doesn’t quite work, but that’s not on Jolie’s shoulders. She manages a convincing performance, portraying significant depth even where script-writers didn’t give much room for demonstrating the emotional processes that would imply depth on their own. She does all her own stunts, and they’re amazing—jumping from trucks on to other trucks, shimmying her way down an elevator shaft, pulling some Spiderman moves on a building. And, naturally, she remains unspeakably, smoking hot for the duration of the film.

Her supporting actors are A-grade as well, with Ejiofor and Schreiber capably stepping up as her on-screen counter-balance, and Olbrychski nailing his role as the malignant sociopath. They all did a fantastic job, and I wouldn’t criticise a moment of their work.

So with that said—with the pros by far outweighing the cons—I have to summarise with this: Do it. It was worth it every other time, and it’s worth it again.

And in case you’re still wondering, yes, there is a bit of The Bourne Identity in there. But there’s even more of The Manchurian Candidate (Incidentally, Schrieber played Raymond Shaw in the 2004 film adaptation of the novel). Want to fight about it?