it gets more and more preposterous, but it's always with craft and competency

Rating: 7/10 (29 July 2010)

Salt continues the very long and tried & true legacy of US vs Russia spy films (continuing even after the Cold War), and this one reminds one of films like Telefon and Three Days of the Condor. Who is this agent, Salt? Was she trained in Russia since her childhood to assassinate the Russian president, or worse? How skillful is she? Is it all just second nature? The real kick with Salt is that after a while her skills and fighting ability and way of sneaking around basements and corridors and sides of buildings and jumping from truck to truck, she goes from being superspy to superhero. If the film wasn't based on a graphic novel, it will probably spur on a couple of others.
I could go on about the plot more, but it's really a kind of plot that needs to be just taken in as it goes. That the film becomes almost non-stop action after Salt is "outed" as a Russian spy is part of this as well. We're mostly watching what comes of another Russian spy coming in and claiming she really works as part of an 'Something-X' program, the likes of which were made to assassinate JFK (conspiracy action, very fun montage). The fun then, and really what makes it more fun that it should be illegitimately, is the actors believing so much in what they do. Jolie is part of it, looking glamorous like a movie star and also can kick ass when she has to - which is a lot - and Liev Schrieber and Chiwetel Ejofor get some decent supporting roles to play with. And of course twists keep coming, and second-guessing being the name of the game in spy movies helps keep one interested.
I was never bored through Salt, and that is really the biggest compliment I would want to pay it. It could have been directed with a level of professionalism and courtesy for the viewer's intelligence, but still also not very interesting. The careening-around plot, Jolie's screen presence and hints at deeper meaning, make it something a little more than it could have been. And by the end, we're hoping that there will be another Salt movie, perhaps with an even stronger plot. It's not a triumph, but a tightly constructed summer spy movie following long after the coat-tails of Bourne.