"Where’s my husband? I am not a spy!” Salt.

Orlov (Daniel Olbrychsky), a Russian spy “walks” into the CIA offices and drops a bomb shell. The Russian President is going to be assassinated while attending the funeral for the Vice President of the United States. What’s more, that assassin is currently working for the CIA. Not only does Orlov announce the assassination, but he also names the assassin, CIA Agent Salt (Angelina Jolie). Is she a mole, a Russian spy, an assassin, all of the above or is this all a really big misunderstanding? Imagine kissing your husband good-bye in the morning only to have your world turned upside down by mid afternoon. Your husband is missing and now everyone is looking at you questioning your very existence.

As Orlov is being led out, he manages to overcome his CIA handlers and escape. Salt, unable to reach her husband decides to go on the run to find him. Unfortunately for Salt, it only makes her look guilty as she tries to avoid capture and escape the building. While her CIA partner, Ted Winter (Liev Schreiber) is confused by her actions, high ranking CIA official Peabody (Chiwetel Ejiofor) appears to believe Orlov and relentlessly pursues Salt. Salt leads us on an hair-raising flight through the city as we learn her true identity.

While the storyline is a little far-fetched, the twists and turns will leave you on the edge of your seat! The conspiracy theory specialists, however, will have a field day with the thought that a clandestine set of spies are walking amongst us daily.

Great movie moments:

Angelina Jolie, might be small in stature, but her character’s stunt work is amazingly nimble, especially the scene where she jumps from a bridge to a moving truck on the street below. Throughout the film she is pretty tough, including her cold-blooded assassinations.

It’s refreshing to see such a strong, female lead character, though it would have been nice if they didn’t have Salt focus so much on finding her husband, I like when the film sticks to the “all business” side of Salt.

Not-so-great movie moments:

The opening scenes depicting the torture of Agent Salt is extremely brutal, as are images of her beaten body when she is released from capture. As brutal as it is, however, it does lay the framework for understanding her during the balance of the movie.

Overall, I’m not sure you would be able to say “I didn’t see that coming,” as long as audiences realize that this is movie entertainment, and don’t try to apply too many real life scenarios and rules, Salt is a pretty good movie.

My rating: 3 out of 5 stars.

Details:

Director: Phillip Noyce (Also, The Bone Collector, Clear and Present Danger and Patriot Games)
Rating: Rated PG-13 I’m not sure who is handing out ratings these days, but be prepared for a lot of blood, fighting and gun violence.
Runtime: 100 min

Find Salt on Amazon.

This movie is part of my own DVD collection. I have not been compensated for this review.