Salt - Review

Salt - ***

The obvious jokes about the title of the movie have been made, like "Salt cures the summertime blues" (geddit? Like how salt cures ham! Haw haw) or "Salt spices up a bland summer", so I'll spare you any any more of it.

Salt is a modest, inoffensive, but fun thriller starring Angelina Jolie as a CIA interrogator that is implicated as being a deep-cover double-agent by a Russian defector. The Russian's story is mostly bogus, until he name-drops Salt as being said agent, who will start World War III by assassinating the Russian president during his visit to New York. She is immediately detained by her immediate superior (Chiwetel Ejiofor), but her company partner Ted (Liev Schreiber) tries to protect her. Unfortunately, Salt is too smart for them and escapes. But why? If she's innocent, then surely they can just hold on to her until this blows over.

Unfortunately, she's married. And she's been an agent long enough to know that when an active agent is being burned by an enemy, then the enemy is using that to discredit and destroy the agent's whole life. Including Mike, her husband (August Diehl, who you may remember as Major Hellstrom from Inglourious Basterds. Y'know, the officer during the 20 questions game in the bar?). She fears for his life, and escapes to find him when she can't get in touch with him.

But enough about the plot. It's a standard thriller plot that sounds like it's one step removed by so-called "terror babies," only that these kids are Russian. The plot gives us enough to understand what's going on, and keep us interested with the whys.

The action is what's fun. A lot of viewers complain about movies that can't seem to use a tripod or keep from cutting every second. Well, this movie does these people proud. Salt works well enough as a thriller for the simple reason that the action is easy to follow. There's not much else I can say. It's not a deep thriller, and the pacing is a bit weird at times, but the movie delivers some earnest action and a surface-deep plot that gives you enough to follow along without a lot of exposition.