Friday 20 January 2012

Salt

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Year:2010
Country of origin:USA
Director:Phillip Noyce
Genre:Silly espionage fluff
Starring:Angelina Jolie, Liev Schreiber, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Daniel Olbrychski
Rating:3/5
IMDB link:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0944835/
Tagline:Who is Salt?
Favourite line:"The name of the agent is Evelyn Salt."

Angelina Jolie action 'vehicle' Salt is a rather silly, surprisingly dull affair.

The plot:
When a Russian defector walks into CIA Headquarters voluntarily to turn himself in, Jolie's Evelyn Salt is sent in to interrogate him, to find out what he knows and, just as importantly, to find out what he wants in return for his information. The man is unusually co-operative and, most intriguingly, he claims to want nothing in return. Then he drops his bombshell:
He claims that an agent named Evelyn Salt is a Russian double agent, one of a batch of sleeper agents set in place by the KGB during the height of the Cold War in readiness for Day X, the day Russia would strike out at America and crush it once and for all. Salt is rattled, her superiors more so who intend to take her captive, but she has other ideas, making good her escape in a manner so complicated and contrived it brought a genuine smile.
So begins a cat and mouse game of 'hunt the rogue agent,' Jolie protesting her innocence, claiming that she is just trying to protect her husband.

Famously intended as a Tom's Bruise movie, the makers had to switch genders when he pulled out to make that height of banality Knight and Day instead, though this isn't much better, in truth.
The set-pieces are ludicrously unrealistic, which would be OK, but they are handled poorly, too, the CGI woven into the onscreen mayhem in a very slipshod manner.
Jolie is OK, I suppose, though she doesn't get to say much, her role pretty much confined to running around a lot, pouting with those freakish rubber lips and clinging on to the top of moving vehicles.
Interest levels aren't helped any by the casting of Liev Schreiber as supporting male, an actor so boring and lifeless he seems to suck the energy out of every scene in which he appears.
Whilst not as bad as I may be implying, this is effectively a watered down version of far superior espionage thrillers; Bourne, Alias, even Bond and, ultimately, just feels a little plodding and tame.
Yawn.

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