Salt

(2010)

Dir: Phillip Noyce

 

You want vinegar with that?

What to say about Salt? It is difficult to come up with anything fresh to say about a film so void of the stuff it could do with a Febreze-laced bomb as its central McGuffin. Directed by Phillip Noyce, the Aussie director who made his name with late eighties, early nineties adaptations of Tom Clancy spy thrillers Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger. He should really have known better.

The plot follows Angelina Jolie’s titular heroine, who is fingered by a defector as a pesky Commie sleeper agent planning on assassinating the visiting Russian President. Does Salt hang around to try and clear her name? Of course she bloody doesn’t, because as we all know from virtually every espionage film ever made, whilst terrorists might be gits, the CIA are complete bastards.

Going for the female Bourne approach, Salt is far less effective than the superb Liman/Greengrass/Damon films, becoming what the forgetful trilogy was always in danger of if placed in the wrong hands: a film with someone running, like, really fast. His clunky Clancy adaptations never showcased Noyce as particularly adept at handling the spy genre, with his less bombastic works, such as the 1989 chiller Dead Calm and 2002’s acclaimed Rabbit Proof Fence, doing a far greater job of highlighting his ability.

Salt’s plot becomes more and more convoluted, spitting obvious twists out towards the end like a beaten boxer’s teeth. The set-pieces are fast, frenetic and slick, but aside from one freeway hopping sequence, there isn’t anything to match the visceral pleasures of Bourne.

But Columbia obviously think they have a potential franchise on their hands, suggested by the open-ended conclusion. Why wouldn’t they? With a marketable and perfectly capable superstar in the lead role, it could be huge. As it is, with the rehashed Cold War plot and Jolie’s sleepwalking performance, Salt ends up running itself into the ground.

** ¾ / *****

“Run Viewer Run!”