Finally a decent female lead action film

Rating: 7/10 (26 January 2015)

'Salt' shouldn't be a particularly noteworthy film. It's a decent action/thriller with a few twists and turns (especially the Director's Cut version) that will keep you entertained and intrigued till the credits roll. When it's all said and done 'Salt' is just another film in an overcrowded genre that includes successfully entries such as the Bourne series, Mission Impossible films, the never ending Bond franchise and standalone films like The Departed and Body of Lies. However, there is a key difference here, only one of these films features a female protagonist. What makes the character of Evelyn Salt an important female figure in the action genre is not what she does so much as what she doesn't do. She doesn't wear skin tight leather, high heels or other impractical clothing for a CIA agent, she doesn't use her body to seduce her male counterparts, she doesn't require rescuing from a more experienced, stronger male character. Yes, Angelina Jolie is an attractive woman, she could be described as sexy, but she is not, in this film at least, a sexualised object of male desire and there is a world of difference between the two. It's interesting to note that the character she plays was originally written for a man, Tom Cruise to be precise, then later changed to a woman. This is reminiscent of the origins of the character of Ellen Ripley in the Alien franchise who was written as a man. While there was a slight change in pronoun to accommodate actress Sigourney Weaver, not a single line of dialogue changed from the original script. Ripley is arguably one of the best, it not the finest example of a non-sexualised strong female character in an American action/sci-fi film and it's perhaps due to the fact that she was written as a man. Being written as a man she comes across as strong willed, independent, ambitious, physically tough and aggressive, all qualities that are very rarely attributed to American female film stars. In a perfect world, 'Salt' would not warrant an overly wordy review or require any particular attention. However, due to the misogynist and sexist culture that permeates our patriarchal society it is significant when a film comes out of the Hollywood machine that features a female lead that is treated with respect and is presented to be just as capable as the men that dominate her world.