One-woman army

Salt is a racy, action-packed drama, which doesn’t give you the time to think

WITH a title like Salt, you wonder when Pepper will come, but not here, it is the name of super agent/spy Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie) and what a woman she is, Salt makes James Bond look like Sunday school stuff as she fists, kicks, kung-fus her way about like a one-woman army. She’s walking through the walls too but these days that aspect is confined to trucks.

In fact, rookies in the field are comparing Salt to Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. Not me. Even though Jolie proves her immense versatility, her real m`E9tier in sensitive, emotional parts like in Girl, Interrupted released a decade ago along with Boys Don’t Cry where Hillary Swank is absolutely brilliant (she won an Oscar too) and the pair marked the advent of two bright and talented new stars.

Of course, the plot must be taken with ‘a handful of salt’ and there’s a twist at every turn with the viewer quite boggled at the role of this wonder woman. But if one can suspend one’s thought process for just 90 minutes, Salt is a roller coaster ride of thrill and spills, chases and fisticuffs that will leave most men stunned.

Actually, the part was meant for Tom Cruise but as he wasn’t available, it was re-written for Jolie. The screenplay by Kurt Wimmer and Brian Helgeland is taut and director Phillip Noyce goes to town with the action. The chase (read running) sequences have come a long way since Dustin Hoffman may be started it decades ago in Marathon Man.

In this film, the new thing is jumping from one moving cargo trailer to another and here cinematographer Robert Ebswit’s talent is tested. James Newton Howard’s music also embellishes the suspense, and there is no dearth of it.

In this maze of CIA agents and counter agents, there are any number of cameos. The American Vice-President is killed and the Soviet President targeted. Shades of that classic The Day of the Jackal suspense are sprinkled like mustard and Ted Winter (Live Schreiber) is the US agent seemingly at the receiving end. Peebody (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is another hard on the trail of Salt while Orlov (Daniel Olbsychski) is the KGB man, who has trained Salt ever since her parents died in a car crash. It is believed that such a background is conducive to one’s instinct to survive.

All said and done, Salt is a racy, action-packed drama, which doesn’t even give you time to think. And just as well. Well work a dekko even if Angelina Jolie is just wasted.

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