Naming an action hero after a condiment only invites all kinds of stomach-wrenching word play. With "Salt," I will show restraint and refuse to pepper this review with comments that don't cut the mustard.
In "Salt," Angelina Jolie, the female action hero du jour, gets to play the movie's title character, a CIA officer who goes on the run after she's accused of being a Russian spy. It seems that back in the good old Cold War days, the Soviet Union had planted sleeper spies inside the United States. At the right time, they were to be "awakened" and perform all kinds of commie malfeasance. Think "The Manchurian Candidate" getting morphed into a James Bond movie.
A Russian defector named Orlov (Daniel Olbrychski) trained these spies and during his interrogation claims that our hero, Evelyn Salt, is one of them and that her mission is to assassinate the Russian president. The CIA at first doesn't believe Orlov, but when Salt flees, doubts arise.
The most entertaining parts of "Salt" are the multiple chase scenes that go off the charts on the preposterous scale. In one scene on a busy highway, Salt jumps from a tanker to a tractor-trailer to a truck without sustaining a bruise.
In another scene, Salt commandeers a police cruiser and, despite being handcuffed, manages to smash up a whole lot of vehicles before escaping. She later jumps down an elevator shaft. She also proves very adept at dodging bullets and beating the living daylights out of anyone in her way.
Any similarities with this film and "Knight and Day" in which Tom Cruise plays an agent on the run is purely coincidental.
That said, if Oscars were given for stunt work, "Salt" would be a multiple winner.
Just don't enter the theater expecting a showcase of plausibility. This is a classic turn-off-your-brain film. Any thinking and you'll see the massive plot holes, you'll uncover the real villain and you'll be miserable. When Jolie disguises herself as a man, all you can do is laugh.
Director Phillip Noyce, no stranger to spy films as he directed "Clear and Present Danger" and "Patriot Games," knows how to stage action scenes. He's less successful, however, dealing with the human element, specifically the relationship between Evelyn and her German husband Michael (August Diehl).
