Salt

The headline-making arrests of ordinary American citizens working as Russian spies might have lent a degree of credibility to this tale of a beautiful CIA operative (Angelina Jolie) who is accused of being a Soviet-era sleeper agent. But filmmaker Phillip Noyce’s Salt quickly sacrifices the slightest shred of plausibility when the titular heroine escapes from her agency captors and eludes pursuit by jumping from truck to truck in speeding traffic. Salt becomes ever more preposterous as it rushes through a series of big set-pieces—including an assassination attempt on the visiting Russian president at a Washington, D.C., church—as it hurtles towards a ludicrously apocalyptic finale in which the fate of the world is literally at stake. None of this would be fatal if the film took a tongue-in-cheek approach to its absurdly convoluted story, but all is played totally straight. Jolie once again proves to be an adept action heroine, handling the physical demands of the part with aplomb and generating a genuine sense of mystery about her enigmatic character’s true identity (although she can’t convincingly pull off a male disguise—even if everyone believes her here). Salt wants to be a labyrinthine spy thriller, but with dialogue that ranges from pedestrian to awful and twists that are more predictable than surprising, the skillful action choreography isn’t enough to cover up the film’s brainless center. Optional. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include three versions of the film (the theatrical release and two extended cuts), audio commentary by director Phillip Noyce and various crew members, “The Treatment” radio interview with Noyce (27 min.), the production featurettes “The Ultimate Female Action Hero” (8 min.) and “Spy Disguise: The Looks of Evelyn Salt” (6 min.), and trailers. Exclusive to the Blu-ray release are the “Spy Cam” picture-in-picture track, a “making-of” featurette (30 min.), a segment on “The Real Agents” (13 min.), “The Modern Master of the Political Thriller” segment on Noyce (9 min.), a “False Identity” featurette on visual effects (7 min.), and the BD-Live function. Bottom line: a fine extras package for an uneven thriller.] (F. Swietek)