ON THE SILVER SCREEN: "SALT" CONTAINS NO SPICE

By Brian Lafferty

July 23, 2010 (San Diego)--The scenario of Salt is gleefully implausible, with twist after twist and sequences of events that go way beyond the valley of the absurd. The film knows this. These would not be criticisms if the movie was any good, but Salt is a surprisingly boring action movie, completely devoid of suspense as if the filmmakers made a conscious effort to avoid it.

The lack of suspense is due in large part to the mistakes the screenplay makes in the first half. The title character, played by Angelina Jolie, is an agent for the CIA who is accused of being a spy for the Russian government. This triggers a lengthy chase scene, segues into a plot to assassinate the President of Russia, before finally morphing into a scheme to start nuclear war.

Kurt Wimmer, the screenwriter for this picture, makes a huge mistake in implying to the audience that Salt is innocent at the start. This may have looked like a good idea on paper but in practice it attenuates the lengthy chase sequence that takes up most of the first half. She always has the upper hand on everything. To say she’s one step ahead would be a gross underestimation; ten to twenty steps would be more accurate. This facet would be well suited to a villain but for a hero, it renders action scenes interminable, since audiences will know she’s never in danger of being caught.

Jolie gives a serviceable performance and she is the best thing about this picture. The acting of the supporting cast, however, leaves a lot to be desired. The other performances linger dangerously towards the wooden end of the acting spectrum, with barely any life. The writing, pacing, and acting are delivered with a matter-of-fact idiosyncrasy, as if all the events in this film are simply business as usual. The action scenes have such a surprisingly mundane and unoriginal texture to them that I could feel my eyes glazing over. The action scenes include the typical on-foot pursuit, jumping on top of moving trucks on the freeway, endless shootouts, explosions, and even the old knife in the shoe bit made popular by From Russia with Love.

It doesn’t help that some of these sequences contain poorly-framed shots that undermine the action. Some of them made me wonder if they were accidental, as in the on-foot pursuit between Salt and the CIA. Thanks to long lenses and placement of characters in front of the camera, the action is shot in such a way that it creates the illusion that they aren’t going anywhere. If this sounds familiar to you it might be because this technique was used to great effect in The Graduate.

The screenplay for this movie employs a disjointed, “anything goes” structure. There are many pieces which compose of twists, assassination attempts, plots to start wars, flashbacks, and chases. None of these pieces come together as a whole nor are they interesting by themselves. Instead, viewers are left with a messy, stream-of-consciousness set of action and story fragments.