"Primary or double agent, that is that is the question."
Angelina Jolie had an image problem. For years each of her life steps has been
flashed to the weekly tabloids. Faced with the inevitability of being better
known as a celebrity than as an actor, Jolie - who has on occasion proven
herself to be a very good actor - solved her problem by storming full tilt into
the world of special effects action (See "Lara Croft, Tomb Raider"). With "Salt"
she has finally and fully embraced that image by becoming "Angelina Jolie,
Action Hero." It might be hard these days to believe her as Anna Karenina, but
she is a credible marvel as Evelyn Salt, covert agent.
"Salt" offers
this premise: for decades the Russians have been educating certain children in
all things American. They will be planted in normal American lives, available in
a precise future moment for activation as agents in an enormous collective
operation against America. What role does Evelyn Salt (Jolie) play in this
espionage puzzle? Primary or double agent, that is the question.
Along the way
to resolution you will watch this super secret plant as she is tracked by both
the Russians and the Americans. She uses her American resourcefulness to build a
rocket from the hollow legs of a desk chair and to descend an elevator shaft
floor by floor by leaping amongst the rigging; she lands in astonishing safety
after jumping from a bridge to the roof of a semi, thence to a tanker truck, the
river, and a helicopter.
This is comic
book action, pure and simple; but it's good fun to watch the foot racing through
the tunnels below St. Bartholomew's Church in New York, through a bunker eight
stories beneath the White House, and the streets of both cities. It succeeds as
well as it does because Angelina Jolie looks at the forces arrayed against her
with a "Bring it on" attitude. She is one actor who has the sense both on screen
and off to keep her mouth shut and let the Russian agents of this film or the
tabloids of real life do all the talking. We know her no better at movie's end
than we did at the beginning which tells us she knows the secret to both
celebrity and movie stardom: mystery. We never know what's in her mind. We can
let our imaginations run on that blank slate.
It's a
coincidence of comic proportions that this movie that plants agents in the
American landscape for a future purpose coincides with the deportation of twelve
actual Russian agents who had been similarly planted in this country for a
reason we have yet to fathom. What were they doing here? What was their future?
It seems that Hollywood knows.
"Salt" shares
the marquee this week with the grimly impenetrable "Inception" that stars the
ponderous, thudding Leonardo DiCaprio. In the superficial summer thriller
sweepstakes Angelina Jolie, with a hefty assist from Liev Schreiber and Chiwetel
Ejiofor, wins this one going away.
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