The Kidd Vs. Salt

The Kidd Vs. Salt

CAUTION: SPOILERS AHEAD

I really didn’t know what to expect from SALT going into my screening of the film. The promotional materials leading into the movie really didn’t do much for me, but I was hopeful that a spy thriller fronted by Angelina Jolie could deliver the goods better than most of the convoluted spy flicks we’ve been getting as of late. SALT isn’t a great film… hell, it isn’t even a very good film. But what it is is a fairly entertaining film packed with some excellent action sequences that unfortunately runs out of gas about 3/4 of the way through. While you may find yourself getting exhausted that far in, apparently so did the filmmakers, coasting through the final act on spy movie cliches and endless double crosses that really don’t bring about a very satisfying conclusion to SALT. And that’s too bad, because, up until that point, I was locked in an unpredictable tale about a CIA agent accused of being a Russian spy. After that though, I’d have a hard time telling you exactly what every character’s name was, because it was switched on me several times in a matter of minutes… and confusion is not the way you want a movie to end up.

The premise of SALT is a pretty intriguing one. CIA Agent Evelyn Salt (Jolie) gets called on to interrogate a possible Russian defector who’s spinning tales of a Cold War Russian plan to destroy the United States from within by creating a sleeper cell of spies already integrated into American society. He warns that one such spy is ready to launch an assassination attempt on the Russian President at the funeral for the American Vice President, and that spy’s name is Evelyn Salt. Salt denies any such knowledge of this, but, with national security on the line and government official Peabody (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, doing much better work than in 2012) seeking immediate answers, Salt goes on the run to prove her innocence and her true identity as she attempts to locate her missing husband. Of course, the Russian defector escapes custody, and SALT becomes a question of solving the mystery of who is telling the truth, who isn’t, and who is or isn’t who they claim to be.

For most of the film, Jolie pulls out all the stops as Salt, the type of agent capable of scaling buildings and building weapons out of fire extinguishers and your typical janitorial items. This is a bad-ass trained by the United States government to be a lethal killing machine, and it shows when lesser-skilled law enforcement tries to take her down throughout the movie, and she’s able to breeze through 5 or 6 of them at a time without breaking a sweat. She’s able to create the thrills of SALT single-handedly by taking part in some superb action sequences, but it’s the emotional issues of the character that fall flat. There’s a subplot surrounding Salt’s marriage to a German National who laid it all out on the line for her a couple of years earlier, in order to get her released from imprisonment in North Korea, but none of that ever really goes anywhere. And, as a result, when Salt goes on a short-lived quest to find her hubby, it feels like total filler. Those fillings are further reinforced when the notion of locating Salt’s husband completely disappears from the storyline until it’s convenient for him to pop up later. That puts their reunion in a position lacking any type of emotion and really something that no longer seems to matter or be anywhere near as important as we were initially led to believe.

But you’re not checking out SALT for its romantic interludes, so the obvious question is how good is the action. Well, the answer to that is easy – it’s pretty sick. There’s plenty of hand-to-hand combat to go around, but SALT does provide one of the most heart-pounding chase sequences I’ve ever seen. It takes place on foot, through the streets, within buildings, across highways, using cars, trucks, and motorcycles, and it never lets up for a second. This entire set-up spans several locations and eats up a nice chunk of the film, and it’s all worth it. It’s not every film that you see a spy thrown themselves off a perfectly good overpass onto a 18-wheeler passing by, and then proceed to leap from truck to truck while each vehicle was in motion in order to escape the long arm of the law. It’s this extended sequence that is really when SALT is at its best, and, while it could easily be criticized as over-the-top and outrageous along with other aspects of the film, what else do you expect from a spy movie with characters who are capable of all sorts of extraordinary actions due to their military training and beyond?

In addition, the assassination attempt also makes for an exciting action beat, as it’s more about the journey from beginning to end of Salt being involved than the end of how it all turns out. It’s like George Clooney as Danny Ocean with his 10 other counterparts operate in order to pull off the perfect mission. Only this time, there isn’t a gang all working together simultaneously to make it work. It’s one person executing the plan they’ve hatched to get their desired results and creating all the thrils.

Liev Schreiber as Salt’s CIA boss Ted Winter does a fine job as expected. His character forces Schreiber  to put in some work spanning the concerned co-worker to the angry CIA agent, with touches of betrayal added for a little extra kick. However, it’s the ultimate role of Ted Winter that will leave you with a funny after-taste in your mouth, as it comes across as forcefully wedged into the end of SALT and something you should have seen coming but didn’t, because you elected to give SALT far more credit than it deserved, thinking it wouldn’t rely on the tired tricks of other spy movies. It does.

Kurt Wimmer and Brian Helgeland take a fairly easy plot and send it through the ringer, adding as many twists and turns as they possibly can in a short amount of time, which is mostly the last fraction of the film. The beginning of SALT and its build is fairly straight-forward yet unpredictable, because you still are uncertain as to what the end game is, where everything is headed. Then, all of a sudden, that unpredictability takes you for granted, incorporating various double agents and several dual identities, thrusting them into a story that didn’t need them and certainly in a direction that you never thought and definitely hoped SALT would never go.

Director Phillip Noyce easily puts forth his best work since the Harrison Ford Jack Ryan days he was at the helm for. He is able to build tension and excitement by properly pacing the film. He knows how to mix the puzzle reveals of who Salt is with the action set-ups as SALT ramps up to be a pretty strong entry into the spy genre, but, after things appear to be on the up and up, SALT comes off the rails with over-explanation, which is the only way it could have attempted to pull off its rather ridiculously unfulfilling ending.

I liked the idea of a long-standing Russian plot that’s been in effect since the Cold War to bring down America many years after the fact. That’s a fresh take on any possibly underlying animosity that could exist with those surviving Communists that sought to destroy the United States, and, in a better movie, such a concept could have been executed far better. Unfortunately, with SALT, that device is wasted amidst a plot so riddled with holes that, by the end, comparing it to Swiss cheese would be a severe understatement.

There’s a lot that actually does work in SALT, which makes what doesn’t work stand out that much more, rendering SALT as a disappointment, not so much because The Kidd had high expectations going in, but due to the incredible promise it showed early on and later betrayed. The action in SALT is top-notch, and, if that’s all you’re looking to take from SALT, then you may just wind up having a good time watching this film. However, if you want more from SALT, and you’re hoping for a good spy movie, you might want to look elsewhere. You’re not going to find it here, and, in fact, you might wind up more confused with who is who and what their motives than you would if you sat through another viewing of INCEPTION. SALT is a lesson in what could have been, because what it is is a movie that’s nothing special, but at least 3/4  filled with entertainment.

Tags: angelina jolie • movie reviews • salt • The Kidd Vs