Big Screen
Movie: Salt
Cast: Angelina Jolie, Liev Schreiber, Chiwetel Ejiofor
For a movie that was released at a time when the silver screen sizzlers like “Inception”, “Toy Story 3” and “Twilight Saga: Eclipse” hog the limelight, “Salt” has not done enough to keep up with the others in the hype-race.
It's a cult action-political espionage film whose characters don't have depth, fight scenes keep you wanting for less and script is so jig-sawed that it makes the plot look like a haphazard Bourne thriller. It's like the saying “the bark was better than the bite, the movie worse than the hype”.
Baffling plot
Jolie plays Evelyn Salt, a gutsy patriotic CIA officer, whose life turns topsy-turvy when a Russian turncoat accuses her of being a Russian spy, sworn to kill the President of the United States. She then goes on the run, being chased by her own colleagues.
When the Russian President comes to the funeral of the Vice-President of the U.S., Salt penetrates a massively tight security cover headed by her CIA friend and confidante, Ted Winter (Schreiber) and kills the President. Salt's identity comes under scrutiny as Peabody (Chiwetel) discovers that she's a Russian sleeper agent, highly trained for secretive espionages.
The few redeeming features of this movie are its sharp twists and spins, especially at the end. You would never have seen it coming. Though it lives up to its tagline ‘Who is Salt?', the eccentricity of the story and lack of action to keep your eyes popping, bring down the rating of this flick.
Angelina tries in vain to keep up the standards that she had set in “Tomb Raider” and “Wanted” while Liev Schreiber plays his uber-convincing character to the T. Chiwetel kind of over-acts towards the end as the story starts sagging a bit.
Bottomline: “Salt” is an overt Angelina-hyped movie that isn't that great a thriller and averages out as a popcorn movie that's sure to leave your tongue salty, literally and figuratively!
Nandakumar Ganesh, II Year, BITS - Pilani, Dubai
