Salt – Movie Review from modmove

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Salt
Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie) is a present-day CIA ‘Mata Hari’; a desk-jockey saboteur at the top of her game who is highly respected by her superior. That is until a Russian defector walks in and accuses her of being a Red State sleeper agent. Suddenly the super spy is the office pariah and running for her life. It's a day in the life of a CIA agent, I guess.

Jolie is one of the few actors in Hollywood who can pull off action flicks as well as high drama. Just look at her last two films: Timur Bekmambetov's Wanted and Clint Eastwood's Changeling. To put into perspective the value of Jolie to this movie, just imagine Milla Jovovich in the role. Noyce would have to throw in a few undead just to lift the interest factor above comatose. Of course, Jolie's stunning good looks helps also.

The film starts with what appears to be a major logical flaw but which is wholly explained in the end. This is all well and smug but the problem is that we're left to stew on this perceived flaw for the entire duration of the film and by the time director, Phillip Noyce, flips us the answer we've already convinced ourselves that the premise is ridiculous. This is a difficult position for the audience to come back from. It is to the films credit, however, that the pace is so fast throughout that we have little time to interrogate any further flaws and we can just go along for the ride which, admittedly, is entertaining enough.

The action is suitably thrilling and heroic as befits a movie of this kind, if a little par for the course. Parallels to the Bourne franchise are obvious as they are to Renny Harlen's The Long Kiss Goodnight, but Salt lacks the gravitas of the former and the sheer fun of the latter.

What we're left with then is a run-of-the-mill action flick which nicely fills a cinematic gap while we're waiting for Piranha 3D.
Stuart Jamieson
www.whoissalt.com.au


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