Agreeable But Undistinguished Action Thriller Of Renegade CIA Woman

Rating: 5/10 (5 April 2013)

Evelyn Salt is an elite CIA agent whose world is turned upside down when a Russian defector claims that she is a KGB plant with a mission to assassinate the visiting Soviet president. Desperate and on the run, which side is she really working for ?
Salt is an enjoyable but by the numbers thriller, good on action and with a couple of nice story twists, but weak on characterisation and plotting. It works best when it's moving fast during three big set pieces - the extended car/foot chase sequence at the beginning, the assassination attempt in the cathedral, and the shootout in the nuclear bunker at the end. These scenes are fun, even if they do subscribe to a lot of classic Hollywood Science mistakes, the stuntwork is excellent, and ever-reliable James Newton Howard provides a great pounding score which gives the movie much more gravitas than it would otherwise possess. However, the story has some fairly gaping holes - why would Orlov blow Salt's cover (other than to kick-start the plot), what's the point in killing her husband (except to trigger the subsequent carnage), why does Salt kill Winter (when a captured agent would be much more useful alive), and so on. More importantly however, the cold ambiguity of Salt's character, necessary to keeping us guessing, gives Jolie (and everyone else) nothing to do emotionally, so we don't know whether or not we should identify with her. If she's pro-Russian she's a baddie, and if she's pro-American she's a thug who spends most of her time maiming her own side - is this a heroine ? It's a classic empathy problem with this type of story - I have a similar issue with Ingrid Bergman in Notorious - and it strips the film of most of the fun the action scenes generate. Movies have to be good stories first and foremost, and all too often this one teeters between dogmatic and risible. The subject matter of sleeper agents is interesting though - see also The House On 92nd Street or Little Nikita. A fair thriller, with plenty to enjoy for action and Angelina fans.