You can have a Jolie good time with Salt

Angelina Jolie’s action thriller Salt has assumed greater relevance with the recent arrest of 10 Russian spies, including ‘hot’ redhead Anna Chapman, in the United States. Jolie even invited Chapman to the premiere of Salt, but in vain.

Our reel-life Chapman, Evelyn Salt (Jolie), is a CIA agent whose loyalty is questioned when Russian defector (Daniel Olbrychski) claims that she is one of hundreds of Russian spies let loose in the US, to strike at the right time.

Not wanting to take a chance, the CIA and Salt’s baffled colleagues are compelled to rein in the alleged double agent supposedly on a mission to kill the visiting Russian vice-president and the president of the United States

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Salt’s boss and friend Ted Winter (Schreiber) wants to believe she is innocent but is compelled to join the chase along with co-agent (Ejiofor) when she takes to her heels.

Throughout, this political action thriller beguiles us with the question: is she a Russian spy or isn’t she? But a more mundane question also keeps popping its irksome head: if all she wanted to do was “speak to my husband”, as she tells her boss when she first hears the charge against her, why is she putting her life at stake and going on a roller-coaster of an adventure halfway round the globe? Oh well, maybe it’s for our sake.

The film was originally supposed to star Tom Cruise in the title role of Salt, but it has lost none of its raw appeal with the protagonist’s change of sex and the resultant change of lead star. (Or was it the other way round?)

In true Hollywood style, Agent Salt is seen doing everything from jumping on speeding trucks to filching bikes to landing on cars without getting so much as a scratch. The editing is sharp and Jolie is mesmerising in those daredevil stunt sequences that keep you on the edge of your seat,

even if you are not used to seeing her in a de-glamorised avatar. Schreiber in his dual role makes you wonder just how many spies there could be hovering around American policymakers.

The film is endurable enough to sit through, but it merits just a one-time watch. It ends abruptly, without answering the question that its publicity machine asked the whole world — Who is Salt? Clearly, a sequel is in the offing, which was recently confirmed by director Noyce.