Jason Bourne in a skirt.

Rating: 6/10 (2 August 2016)

Angelina Jolie is Jason Bourne in a skirt in this politically charged action thriller from director Philip Noyce. Jolie plays CIA agent Evelyn Salt who is revealed to be a Russian sleeper agent planted in the U.S. to carry out a plot called Day X. But have years of living the America way swayed her allegiance?
If there's one thing I find even more puzzling than Angelina Jolie as a sex symbol (the gaunt face and puffy lip thing does nothing for me), it's her status as an action star: here, she is completely unconvincing as a highly trained special agent able to defeat countless enemy in unarmed combat, fall from great heights with nary a scratch, and leap from truck roof to truck roof on a busy freeway. Her slight frame looks as though it would smash on impact.
Noyce conducts proceedings with an assured hand, and achieves a gritty realism to the violence, but the complete miscasting of his skeletal star and a number of action sequences that push plausibility to the limits make this a somewhat frustrating watch overall.