The ‘secret agent on the run’ formula has been redone more times than Johnny Depp’s eyeliner, but never more ridiculously than in this girl-powered blockbuster. The over-the-top action is inventively impressive, and it would be okay if the movie as a whole didn’t take itself slightly too seriously – but plot holes let the package down.
They appear from almost the very first scene and are sizeable enough to have been blown using a high-powered RPG. However, Salt is a mindlessly enjoyable way to spend 100 minutes of your time despite these failings.
Evelyn Salt (the name is supposedly a reference to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, which seems like a bit of a giveaway moniker for a spy) is a highly trained CIA agent. Her life gets turned upside down when a Russian spy identifies her as the future assassin of his president in front of a room full of US government suits. The nervy Salt then bolts because that won’t make you look guilty at all.
Long-time colleague Ted Winter (Schreiber) is convinced of her innocence, while counter-intel agent Peabody (Chiwetel Ejiofor) wants to lock her up and throw away the swipe card. His instincts look to be on the money when she guns down her suspected target a couple of days later. The panic is ratcheted up a notch with the US president identified as her next port of murderous call.
Amid this international espionage comes a sympathetically told backstory about adoption and childhood brainwashing. Still, this effort to bulk out Salt’s character fails to mesh at all with the main plot. With every predictable ‘twist’ (she’s a double agent! Or is she? She is! Or is she?), the tale exposes its incoherence more. Picking through its bones after the credits have rolled will only leave you miffed.
The performances themselves are all serviceable, if little more, and it’s never too much of a chore to spend an hour and a half looking at Angelina. Salt is an entertaining distraction, even if it fails to do anything new within its sub-genre. The action falls on the stupid side of brash (using a Taser to make a dead cop drive a car? Please), and the Bourne-lite plot is as collapsible as a house of cards. Fun but forgettable.