Salt (2010)

Salt is your run-of-the-mill summer action movie with a twisted story akin to The Bourne series or James Bond of old. Like those movies the action is over the top and crazy, guns blaze and sparks fly but the PG-13 rating spares us the blood and guts that should accompany such wicked projectiles. One scene has Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie) killing a guy by ramming the jagged end of a broken bottle into his neck but this is left to your imagination since all we see is the motion and then the discarded bloody bottle after the fact. Am I the only one who prefers his action graphic and R-rated? Still Salt was highly likeable and the liking goes beyond the beauty at the helm.

The plot of Salt is not easily summarized without offering up spoilers so I cannot go there. I will say however that it involve the CIA, a super-spy named Evelyn Salt, her fellow spy Ted Winter (Liev Schreiber) and a plot involving Russia, North Korea and terrorism. Angelina Jolie does her thing as Evelyn Salt, with the action looking very much like she did the stunts herself (which she did). Speaking of stunts, unlike the Bourne series, the fighting and action in Salt was done extremely well. When Evelyn fought bigger guys she would use objects and moves that made sense for a smaller woman. I have grown tired of seeing small, slight women throwing roundhouses, jabs and fancy moves to drop big 300lb muscle men in action films. Salt takes guys out by kicks to the groin, trapping the knee, breaking bottles across their faces and choking them out with chains. If anything, this really impressed me with the action.

What I didn’t like about the action was the tired, incorrect and convenient knockouts that occurred when people got beat up. Movies tend to lean on this to discard bad guys who they don’t want to have the hero kill. The hero will punch baddies in the gut and step on their hand and they will lie on the ground knocked out no matter where they were hit. Salt did a good job on the choreography but guys were getting knocked out from subtle blows and it really bothered me that they took this route. Film quality fluctuates at times especially during the traffic scenes but it isn’t enough to distract the viewer from the scenes that are playing out.

Chiwetel Ejiofor stars as Peabody and is a strong presence as he always – which leads me to wonder when he will headline his own picture. Salt starts out a bit uninteresting and scarily bland until 30 minutes in then it turns into a bullet train ride of action. Angelina is a Jack of all Trades in the acting profession having played the tender damsel and the hardcore action heroine. I believe that after Tomb Raider, Angie was bitten by the action bug and not only loves playing the femme fatales but does a damn good job at it too.

Go out and check out Salt if you are an action fan and wish to see one of the better movies this summer.

Written by Greg Dragon – who has written 365 reviews on Spicy Movie Dogs.

Cinephile and opinion writer, Greg Dragon has been a fan of movies since the 80's when Kung Fu theater was all the rage and Roger Moore was James Bond. As an opinion writer that has reviewed Box Office releases on a number of prominent websites, Greg is the founder and lead critic of Spicy Movie Dogs.