The Russians are Coming

Angelina Jolie has had a diverse film career. She started off with her breakout role in Hackers, playing the sexy, cool girl that everyone wanted. While she played this role a number of times in later films (such as in Pushing Tin, Gone in Sixty Seconds), she also used it as a jumping off point to find more interesting, more dramatic characters (such as in Girl, Interrupted). It did seem hard for her to make her more dynamic action roles stick, getting dropped as the lead into films that used her as the “cool, sexy” star than actually playing to any of her other strengths (such as the Lara Croft: Tomb Raider films).

It was clear, though, that she wanted to break out into the action genre and attempt after attempt was made before finally nailing it with an action-comedy-romance that let her emphasize the action part as well in Mr. and Mrs. Smith in 2005. One would think she’d have better luck with the genre after that, considering that Doug Liman-directed film shows her range and her ability to have fun with it as well. But no, by 2010 she was in yet another attempt at launching her action movie ambitions with the dire, sloggy Salt.

Salt is desperate to turn Jolie into an action star on the level of Keanu Reeves or Daniel Craig. Considering Salt came out four years after Casino Royale and plays in the same genre – international espionage – it certainly feels like the film was meant to launch a franchise for Jolie to compete with the likes of James BondThe world's most famous secret agent, James Bond has starred not only in dozens of books but also one of the most famous, and certainly the longest running, film franchises of all time. and Jason BourneLost without his memory, but bearing a particular set of skills, Jason Bourne has to figure out who he is and just why everyone seems to want him dead.. What the film lacks, though, are the action chops to make Jolie into that ass-kicking goddess she clearly wants to be. She tries, all throughout this movie, but the film feels like it starts to lumber any time it actually has to do action. The espionage it has down, as that plays to Jolie’s acting strengths, but this action film absolutely sucks when it has to do actual action.

Jolie plays Evelyn Salt, a CIA operative who, at one point, was captured by the North Koreans and tortured for days. She’s rescued by her CIA handler, Ted Winter (Liev Schreiber), even though that’s against CIA protocol (you never compromise and rescue a blow asset), but he only rescues her because her boyfriend, Mike Krause (August Diehl), lead the charge and was causing such a stink in the country that something had to be done. This cements the relationship between Salt and Krause and, soon after, they’re married.

Years later, Salt is heading home from the office for her anniversary with Krause when she’s called back in to interrogate a Russian agent who, seemingly, wants to defect. During the interrogation, which is watched not only by Winter but also counter-intelligence agent Darryl Peabody (Chiwetel Ejiofor), the Russian agent, Oleg Vassily Orlov (Daniel Olbrychski), implicates Salt as a Russian mole. He says she’s there to kill the Russian President during a visit to the U.S., all part of a larger plan to destabilize the West. She swears she’s innocent, but then she goes on the run right out from under the CIA’s nose. Her goal: find her husband, clear her name, and find the people actually plotting to kill Russia’s president.

I don’t mean this as a slight against Jolie, as it’s pretty clear the actress has a passion for action films and enjoys playing athletic, ass-kicking characters. The issue is that I don’t ever feel like she has the physical abilities to actually handle the action sequences. She has the will, and she has the presence, make no mistake, but what she lacks (at least it feels like here) is the physical training to hone her actual body into that of an action star. There are so many times where it’s plainly obvious that the film has to cut or shift perspective to cover for Jolie’s limited action skills, and it looks so bad.

The film, in many ways, reminded me of that (much mocked) scene in Taken 3 where it takes 14 cuts to have Liam’s Neeson’s character jump a fence. That’s 14 cuts in 7 seconds, with no part of the sequence on screen for more than a second. Most of the action in this movie is like that: a ton of cuts, staggered perspectives, and so much movement that, while the scene feels dynamic, the actual pacing of the action is lost. It’s hard to keep the focus on the movement or the characters because they’re constantly shifting around. All of this, of course, is to cover for shoddy action and make it look better (which, in reality, it doesn’t actually do).

The film also has to try and hide its issues with CGI and wirework as well. More than once Jolie’s character is launched from a room, or at guys, or through the air in some kind of kick, and the wirework of it is so obvious. She doesn’t move with the right acceleration, or the proper graces. While some of that is the fault of the action coordinator, Jolie is also not skilled enough to be able to cover for the fact that wirework was used. She doesn’t know how to move her body or handle herself the right way. And when it’s bad enough, the film even resorts to pesky CGI to cover for it (and, considering the fact this film was made back in 2010, the CGI has aged like bad cheese).

I’m really not trying to make it sound like I hate the actress, because I don’t. When the film focuses on her being a spy, letting her focus on espionage and covert ops, it’s great. She has presence and she can carry all the dramatic scenes. If the film could have been a spy thriller instead of a spy actioner I think she would have been great in the role. I’m sure the producers looked at the Lara Croft films (which were successful because of their goofiness) and Mrs. and Mrs. Smith (which blended goofy action with fun comedy) and thought, “well, clearly she can handle this action film.” In this case, though, it didn’t really work. I think Jolie is great as Salt, the character, she’s just not great as Salt, the action heavyweight.

I will admit, though, that the film doesn’t do Salt, or Jolie, any favors with its story. It has a mid-film twist that, while interesting in its setup, is absurd when you think about it. And it’s a twist (that I won’t spoil) that the film then has to backtrack, and explain, and redo over and over again just so that it keeps the heroine of the film as its heroine. It’s the kind of twist that you wish the film could have either committed to fully or, instead, not bothered with it at all. It makes the movie so convoluted and over-the-top that, if the film could have at least committed to it, would have been both dark and high-camp at the same time and that would have been far more fun.

I think, honestly, that would have helped the action, too. I wouldn’t have minded the action being sub-par if the film went in on high-camp. Then, at least, it could have reached the similar goofy heights of Jolie’s other action films. Clearly she had ambitions for a dramatic, thrilling franchise (a sequel was originally put into production but then fizzled out in 2011) and those ambitions didn’t align with all the elements of the actual film. This is a misfire, for sure, and one that her career never really recovered from. She starred in plenty of other movies after this, but few action films (and none that were successful). After this, her best blockbuster was Maleficent (which I did enjoy), but that plays in an entirely different genre (and, really, plays to Jolie’s vampy strengths).

I don’t know if there was a chance for Jolie to get an action movie that really could have launched that path for her career. All that’s evident is that Salt was the wrong move for her to make in the end.