With the world's two biggest secret agent franchises both taking a hiatus, and Jack Ryan in retirement, could SALT, helmed by PATRIOT GAMES director Philip Noyce, be the next big series? It is certainly set up for a sequel.
Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie) is a CIA agent who, after being rescued from a North Korean prison, has got married and taken a desk job within "the company", until the arrival of a supposed Russian defector who outs her as a Russian sleeper agent with a mission to assassinate the Russian president, with the intention of not only rekindling the Cold War but fanning the flames of a full-on nuclear conflict. However, Salt has her doubts, even though she sets out to fulfil her mission, and wants to prove her innocence and bring down the Russians who have set out to destroy her life.
It is fairly basic by-the-numbers spy stuff, although having the Russians as the bad guys again does make a nice change from Middle Eastern terrorists. The story is given some extra credence by the recent discovery of Russian spies in the US leading apparently "normal" lives (which wasn't an elaborate publicity stunt for the movie). Apart from that recent spy discovery, US-Russian relations are nowhere near as frosty as they used to be, and this is portrayed in the movie, which becomes the motivation for the planned attacks, because the antagonists are old-school, hardline communists who still have a grudge against capitalist America. However, the political intrigue is nowhere near the level of Noyce's two outings with Jack Ryan, but this is more attributed to writer Kurt Wimmer, whose work has been a bit hit and miss: his films as writer-director in particular. His sci-fi actioner EQUILIBRIUM had great ideas but, like many other genre films at the time, it got buried by the avalanche that was THE MATRIX. His follow-up movie, ULTRAVIOLET, had the dubious honour of even making AEON FLUX look good, although his most recent writing job, LAW ABIDING CITIZEN, was a solid action film, and that's what, above all, SALT is.
SALT is also very much Jolie's film and, being more than familiar with the action genre (MR & MRS SMITH, WANTED, TOMB RAIDER) she handles the role convincingly well, although it is a bit of a waste of her acting talent. Most action movie stars are one-dimensional (as demonstrated by THE EXPENDABLES, also out at the same time), but Jolie can give so much more. Unfortunately, her looks and action credentials make most people overlook the fact she is a fine actress capable of nuanced and dramatic performances (THE CHANGELING), and even in action fare, such as WANTED, she can still produce some subtle and credible acting. This movie doesn't give her a lot of chance to do that as most of the time she is either running or fighting in a manner that would make Jason Bourne envious. Thankfully, on the rare occasions she does have to interact with other people (that doesn't involve killing them), she is ably supported by Liev Schreiber as her CIA partner, and Chiwetel Ejiofor as an FBI investigator.
Having a female lead in an action-spy movie is a bit of a novelty (although one that reportedly only came about because Tom Cruise turned the role down, when it was originally written as a male lead), but that is its only unique selling point. Jolie's agent in MR & MRS SMITH was more engaging than SALT, again, this is down to the writing more than anything. The story's little twists were transparently obvious from the outset, particularly the final act reveal, although some of this was due to casting choices, and some of the action needed massive suspension of disbelief, such as Salt surviving in a near frozen lake wearing a shirt and trousers. If you can overlook these, and to be fair, even James Bond goes way beyond the bounds of credulity, this is a decent action movie that is smarter than the glut of 80s style team-up movies showing at the moment. Maybe, just as Paul Greengrass brought BOURNE into his own, the franchise needs a different writer and/or director to give some more depth and character development, should there be a sequel to what is clearly an origins movie.
SALT is showing at Apollo Piccadilly Circus and cinemas everywhere now
