First off, I’d like to say that the marketing tagline of ‘Who Is Salt?’ is both misleading and clever at the same time. Unfortunately, however, the movie itself tries to be clever but does not really deliver. There are so many plot holes and shortcomings in this movie that even the big star that is Angelina Jolie and the seemingly endless action can’t make up for.
Speaking of action, I’m not going to deny there are lots of it. The thing is all the action sequences are very linear and textbook. People getting beaten up, shooting, explosions, jumping from one moving truck to another; we’ve seen it all. There is nothing new. And the action that is in this movie is quite poorly choreographed and shot. There are on numerous occasions where the camera cuts away just as something important is about to happen. Even during the action stuff, there is too much focus on Jolie as opposed to the people she’s beating up and the stuff she’s blowing up.
Angelina Jolie plays Evelyn Salt, a CIA agent who turns out to be a Russian spy (or not, who knows?). The usual formula for films is that the audience is shown the plans for either the protagonist or antagonist but the protagonist has no idea what the antagonist is up to and vice versa. This creates the suspense effect and allows the audience to take sides while watching the movie. None of this happens in Salt. The audience is kept in the dark about Evelyn Salt’s true motives for most of the movie and this creates a big old wall between the character and the audience. We just cannot relate or connect to her character and everything just breaks down from there.
I mentioned at the start of the review that the film tries to be clever. I understand the need to be mysterious but the whole thing is a complete mess. The twists in this film are absolutely absurd. Half the time you don’t know what the hell is going on or why Salt is doing a particular thing. There seems to be no direction in the film. I must say the premise is a clever one (I would never want it to happen in real life) but it just isn’t executed decently enough in the movie. Coupled with the gaping plot holes, there is no saving this movie.
Salt is really just a movie that has such convoluted characters, cloudy plotline, a myriad of plot holes, crappy action and a hot superstar chick playing the lead. I would pick a mindless action movie over this any day of the week. At the end of the day, for a movie named Salt, it really is tasteless.
I give Salt 4 out of 10 Popcorns.
