At The Movies: Salt

Salt

4.5 stars

Quick Take: An intriguing espionage thriller with lots of action and plenty of deception.

Special Appeal: Angelina Jolie proves--again--that she is can play action games with the best of the big boys.

Players: Angelina Jolie, Liev Schreiber, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Daniel Olbrychski, Mike Krause

Director: Phillip Noyce: (Clear and Present Danger, Patriot Games)

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action

Two years ago...Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie) is a CIA agent being cruelly tortured in a cell in North Korea. All hope is lost. Just as the vicious guards are about to force gasoline down her throat, help arrives. Her CIA partner, Ted Winter (Liev Schreiber), pulls her out and walks her, bloodied and stumbling, out of the prison and past the guard house to safety -- where her husband, the internationally known spider expert, Dr. August Diehl, (Mike Krause) waits eagerly for her. It was he, using his scientific connections, and not the CIA itself who had arranged her rescue. No question, he is a real spider man worth his salt. (Oh, come on, I couldn't resist.)

Flash forward to today. The Cold War, with all its ideological hatred and its intense espionage labyrinths, has made a recovery and the powerful United States is pitted against its equally powerful and ruthless enemy, the Soviet Union. (With the recent discovery of ten long-term Soviet spy implants in the country, the issue of Russian spies hiding undercover in the United States makes Salt uncannily topical. It's nice to have a big contemporary movie where the villains are not Moslem.)

All healed, and spiffed up, Agent Salt is back on duty, and getting ready for a hot date with her husband to celebrate their wedding anniversary. Alas, into the agency walks an older Russian man with an urgent message. This is Orlov (Daniel Olbrychski), a nasty piece of work, embodying the worst of Cold War Russian spy personality disorders. During interrogation, he reveals that there is a Russian mole inside the CIA and this mole intends to kill the Russian President who will be a guest at the upcoming funeral for the U.S. Vice President, who was a great friend of the Russians. The name of this Russian spy is -- Evelyn Salt. Evelyn hears this absurdity and protests. So does her pal, Ted Winter. But agent Peabody (Chiwetel Ejiofor) has become suspicious of Salt and orders a lock-down. A second two late for the hapless three agents that Orlov kills in the elevator using a knife-toed boot. And the chase is on.

And what a ride it is. Angelina leaps over tall buildings, climbs along the ledge of skyscrapers, jumps on the tops of speeding trucks, charges through traffic on a stolen motorcycle, flings herself out of a helicopter into the river below. Nothing stops this gal, not bare feet, a cute pooch, or double-dealing Russian agents. She's a one-woman destruction machine--ruining cathedral ceilings, downing ocean-going tankers, sending taxicabs and police cars to the junkyard.

The script is old-fashioned, meaning it relies on telling a story, with twists and deceptions and betrayals -- all the good things from Cold War spy tales. The direction from Tom Clancy movie veteran Phillip Noyce (Clear and Present Danger) is superb, keeping you on the edge of your seat every minute. Kudos go also to every other craft, photography, music, sound, even make-up. And Jolie is terrific, doing most of her own stunts, playing the ice-cool agent as well as the loving wife, showing fury and grief with the same degree of understated passion.

James Bond she is not. There's nothing funny in the movie. No one, unfortunately, steps out of the crashing surf soaking wet and glorious. Jolie does not do one bit of sexiness in the entire movie -- which is terrific for the movie, by the way, but the chasteness is certainly not Bond-like. The movie, though preposterous, is deadly serious and that gives it a welcome gravitas. Unlike A-Team which also had lots of action but its silly tone made it boring.

But Evelyn Salt is not Jason Bourne either. She's all alone, handling all the bad guys by herself, with no one to talk to the entire challenging journey. And that's the film's big mistake. As gorgeous as Ms. Jolie is, as athletic and believable, she's still only one person. Stories like this one are better served with a buddy of some kind on the journey. We want our heroes and heroines to have some witty repartee, a human connection for good or bad while all the world is in chaos around him or her.

That is why I took half a point off the rating. Salt is terrific, wildly entertaining, get-your-money's-worth fun while you're watching it. You're even going to recommend it to your friends. The only problem is that you're not going to remember it for very long afterwards. Yep, it's a perfect summer popcorn flick.