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Directed by Philip Noyce
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SALT “Salt,”
the new action movie starring Tom Cruise – no wait – it was
SUPPOSED to star Tom Cruise but now it stars that other gorgeous action hero
Angelina Jolie. It’s an
hour and forty minutes of fantastic chases, escapes, shootings and general
mayhem. I had a very good time
and so will you. It has
everything from a Russian defector showing up at CIA headquarters out of the
blue, to stunts involving leaping from truck to truck on the Interstate, to
an assassination at St. Patrick’s cathedral in New York to –
well, why give it away. There
isn’t a believable moment in the film but I assure you you won’t mind. I can say that Angelina Jolie has
gorgeous legs, probably a lot better than Tom Cruise’s, and she is at
least as believable in the film as he would have been. What
is “Salt” about?
Here’s the way it starts:
The Russian defector shows up at Langley to say that a) he was a
colonel in the KGB; b) he is dying of cancer; and c) that there is a Russian
mole right at the CIA headquarters named Salt. Uh-oh, that’s Ms. Jolie’s
name, or at least her nom de plume.
Now what? Is he to be
believed? Can we credit her denials? Before any action can be taken, she
escapes and the chase is on. I
can assure you that there is a great deal of mayhem before the denouement is
reached, with dead bodies piling up during almost every scene. Liev
Schreiber is her boss, Chiwetel Ejiofor
is the security chief, and before we’re done the film brings in both
the president of the United States and the president of Russia. I frankly think only Angelina Jolie
could have brought “Salt” to life and made it work so well. Obviously,
when the script was written and the film shot, no one knew that the July 2010
headlines would be full of stories about real Russian moles
who’d been planted in the United States years ago during the Cold War;
you’d think the whole thing was contrived by Hollywood; it was of
course just an astounding coincidence, but it was unnerving to see it coming
to life before our eyes. The
film was directed by the Australian Philip Noyce,
who made that brilliant view of racist life in Australia “Rabbit Proof
Fence.” He has
unfortunately muddied “Salt” up with a pounding score by James
Newton Howard that underlines every melodramatic moment, but somehow the film
survives. For a summer movie,
“Salt” is a good way to beat the heat. |