Salt

An actress no longer in her twenties takes on a male action lead, gets a $20 million payday AND keeps her clothes on? Kimberly Gadette feels compelled to announce: Hollywood hell has just frozen over.

Salt was almost one more forgettable spy story starring Tom Cruise. But when Angelina Jolie, the first lady of action films (not an oxymoron) told Sony Pictures Co-Chairman Amy Pascal that she wanted to play James Bond, Pascal listened. And when Cruise and director Michael Mann ultimately passed on this project, the first name of CIA agent Salt was no longer Edwin. Instead, it became Evelyn.

While a handful of other actresses have received first or second billing for action adventure movies eg, Sigourney Weaver, Linda Hamilton, Cameron Diaz, no other woman has starred in this genre as often (Wanted, the Lara Croft series, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Gone in 60 Seconds). And none has commanded a $20 million paycheck for an espionage thriller, something that’s particularly noteworthy in these penny-pinching times. And a male-starring actioner, rewritten for a woman? That's a glass ceiling all of its own and as Jolie crashes through it, the stunt work she does is all her own as well. 

Adapted to reflect the change of gender, Kurt Wimmer's screenplay seems to have more dimensionality. Imagine Mr. Cruise taking a long moment to stare lovingly at his little dog before tenderly handing it over to a neighbor's child. Or the director halting the action in order to close in on the actor's face, allowing us to witness the character's extreme emotions of love and sorrow before returning to a stony self-possession. While these beats wouldn't be out of place in a drama, they are fairly unusual for the espionage thriller.

Also unusual is the fevered plot, replete with some unexpected twists. Without tipping either Salt's or this reviewer's hand, sketching in the briefest of scenarios: shortly after we meet happily-married agent Salt, about to celebrate her two-year anniversary with her arachnologist husband (August Diehl), a Russian defector (Daniel Olbrychski) proclaims to an assembled audience of CIA operatives that Salt is a Russian spy, bent on a mission to assassinate the Russian President in order to trigger an international catastrophe. Salt immediately goes on the run, seemingly to save her husband from danger, if not herself. Many chases ensue, with both her immediate superior Ted (Liev Schreiber) and counter-intelligence honcho Peabody (Chiwetel Ejiofor) in hot pursuit. While Ted proclaims Salt's innocence, Peabody wants to either bring her in, or bring her down.

Given that audiences are so inured to every type of vehicle crash, every kind of detonation, the challenge to put more bang! in the viewer's buck must be more daunting with every new year. Perhaps we can therefore forgive director Phillip Noyce for going out on a limb. It's one thing for Salt to go all MacGyver on us, making piecemeal bombs out of whatever housecleaning aids she can grab within seconds at the Washington DC CIA office, but the fact that her girl-power fighter skills can take down legions of trained officers ... honestly? Each and every highly-trained horde? Particularly silly is a scene in which a handcuffed Salt takes over the controls of a police vehicle by Tasering the driver. One time might have been plausible, but over and over, front, back, side to side, as if the policeman were a joystick rather than a human, is a bit much. Her later rappel (sans ropes) down an elevator shaft via mind-numbing leaps, springing across the chasm from one ledge to the other without so much as a superhero's cape, vampire powers or Spidey's special fingers is, again, just silly.

Somewhat inane action sequences aside, as far as the characters are concerned, Noyce is still one of the more intelligent directors of political drama/thrillers (The Quiet American, Rabbit-Proof Fence, Catch a Fire, Clear and Present Danger, Patriot Games). Rather than having his spy thrillers focus solely on the action, Noyce populates his pieces with superior actors who are allowed to treat their characters as more than gun-toting droids spewing "Keep your head down!" ad nauseam.

Between a few doses of back story, plus Noyce's smart utilization of the best resource he has – Jolie's amazingly expressive face – he manages to intermingle the action with some credible drama. Add to that Schreiber's and Ejiofor's well-measured performances that bring additional gravitas.

Hearkening back to Bond, the theme song of 1977's The Spy Who Loved Me comes to mind. (Coincidentally, another version can be found in the soundtrack of 2005's Mr. & Mrs. Smith). Between Jolie's own innate cool, her seeming delight at the physical fun of it all, and her ability to dig deeper than most, if not all, of her male action contemporaries, she is the embodiment of the perfect action star. The song title says it all ... 'Nobody Does It Better.'

Rating on a scale of 5 treasonable doubts: 2.5

Release date: US: 23 July 2010; UK: 20 August 2010
Directed by: Phillip Noyce
Written by: Kurt Wimmer
Cast: Angelina Jolie, Liev Schreiber, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Daniel Olbrychski, Andre Braugher, August Diehl
Rating: US = PG-13; UK = 12A
Running time: 100 minutes