Today’s quick review: Salt. When a Russian agent walks into a CIA compound and asks to defect, he outs agent Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie) as a Soviet sleeper agent with a plan to assassinate the Russian prime minister and kick off a war between Russia and the United States. Salt maintains her innocence, but she fears that her husband is in danger and escapes CIA custody to protect him. With a potential double agent on the loose and a threat against a foreign head of state on their hands, Agents Winter (Liev Schreiber) and Peabody (Chiwetel Ejiofor) must work their way through the tangle of lies to discover the truth and save the US from war.
Salt is a tense spy thriller that mixes an over-the-top superspy plot with down-to-earth, quasi-realistic action. The blend of styles gives the movie an unusual character for an action film, not quite embracing either extreme of its genre. Salt’s feats are much more plausible than the usual action hero’s, but they take place in a world of Soviet sleeper agents, elaborate assassination plots, and rogue superspies that take the entire might of the CIA to protect against. The more outlandish aspects of the premise make room for a tense plot with plenty of twists and action scenes that show off the impressive nature of even the more mundane action movie stunts.
The hook for the plot is the central question of whether or not Salt is actually a Soviet sleeper agent. This ambiguity is the film’s greatest strength and its greatest weakness. On the one hand, it drives a fast-paced plot where each of Salt’s actions could have two meanings and where the actual goals of the Russian defector are a mystery. On the other hand, it raises some questions as to why such an elaborate plan was necessary and prevents the audience from cheering for the protagonist for most of the film. While Salt has an ambitious premise and backs it up with a hefty dose of action, it whiffs on believability and cashing in on the audience’s support for the protagonist.
Fans of action thrillers and the spy genre should give Salt a watch for its ambitious premise, twisting plot, and down-to-earth action. The individual aspects of the film are all very strong, and its only major failing is wrapped up in the very storytelling choice that sets it apart from the other movies in its genre. Fans of all-out action may be disappointed by Salt’s fallible protagonist, while fans of spy realism may dislike aspects of the premise. But on the whole, Salt is an engrossing thriller that is well worth a watch. What it copies, it copies well, and what it experiments with is worth experimenting with.
6.4 out of 10 on IMDB. I give it 7.0 to 7.5 for being a better-than-average spy thriller held back by the way it handles its plot.