Review: ‘Salt’ Is Flavorless, Could Use Some Pepper

“Salt,” the new Phillip Noyce-directed spy thriller, features Angelina Jolie as a covert CIA operative named Evelyn Salt who is accused of being a Russian spy. For the next ninety minutes or so, we watch as she dashes, ducks, climbs out of buildings, detonates bombs and engages in high-speed pursuits, all in an incredibly guilty-looking attempt to clear her name. The biggest problem with “Salt” lies in its unflagging intent: it’s so interested in the chase that it never gives us a reason to be emotionally invested… or even curious.

The beginning of “Salt,” which had to be replayed about five times at our disaster-prone screening, shows our leading lady being tortured in a North Korean military base. Without any connective tissue, we then see her being led out of the camp, bruised and bloody. She sees her handler, Ted Winter (Liev Schreiber), who would usually be one to just let a single agent die. He explains that it wasn’t him that made the plea, it was Jolie’s nerdy German bug scientist boyfriend Mike (August Diehl, aka General Hellstrom, the guy who blew Michael Fassbender’s cover in “Inglourious Basterds”).

One supposes that we’re supposed to be invested in Salt’s relationship with this guy, as we immediately cut to several years later. She is living with the nerdy bug scientist guy, and they are celebrating their wedding anniversary in fact. But thinks take a turn for the worse when a Russian named Orlov (Daniel Olbrychski) comes into CIA offices claiming that, as part of an incredibly convoluted program, there are several sleeper agents waiting to be activated in America. And the name of one of the sleeper agents? Evelyn Salt! Dum…Dummmm…DUMMMMM!

Soon, a counter intelligence agent (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is convinced that she is the culprit and starts in on a dogged pursuit, the Tommy Lee Jones to her Harrison Ford. Except way duller. From there it’s one long chase. Periodically, things are broken up by hastily edited flashback sequences, either to Salt’s earlier spy work (she started seeing the nerdy German bug guy as part of an operation) or to her life as a child. At some point, maybe we missed it in all the poorly choreographed commotion, Salt just becomes that Russian spy (this isn’t giving anything away since it happens pretty early and, really, there’s no other way for the paper-thin story to progress). She goes to a Russian stronghold and might as well fist-bump her other sleeper agent comrades.

At this point things just become so ludicrous that you cease even being mildly curious about the movie. By the time the credits roll, which should be preceded by a title card reading “TO BE CONTINUED” there’s so little resolution, it has all become a blur: the Russian agents’ intentions, what Salt was trying to do (and what her motivations were), and how anything this callous, calculated and cynical could actually sway anyone to watch this thing.

Even though the movie was originally written for Tom Cruise, (under the title “Edwin Salt”) they’ve swung things in the opposite direction to an almost laughable degree. Watch, as Salt kicks off her high heels! Marvel as she covers up a snooping security camera with pantyhose! Gasp as she uses a maxi-pad as a bandage, covering up a bullet wound that never gives her any trouble ever again! She is woman! Hear her roar! (She doesn’t really roar. That would be too interesting a character trait.)

The kind of invincible feats of derring-do that Salt perpetrates suggest some kind of invincible superhero, but the movie is filmed in a rough, hand-held style, with the color pallet consisting of Cold War blues and grays, and accompanied by an atrocious James Newton Howard hard-rock-ish score. The film’s main touchstone is obviously the “Bourne” movies, but “Salt” is too superficial, too concerned with the mechanics of the chase instead of the tormented soul of the protagonist, for anything to ever stick, emotionally or viscerally. Also, recent activity notwithstanding, the whole Russian aspect seems terribly dated and sad. Like everything else about “Salt,” it’s undercooked, half-assed and could use a whole lot more seasoning. [D-]