Salt (12A)

Dir. Phillip Noyce, USA 2010, Dur. 100 mins

Cast: Angelina Jolie, Liev Schreiber, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Daniel Olbrychski

Review by Carlie Newman

After the somewhat dreadful spate of rom-coms that are not funny and action films, like The Expendables , that are rather dire, it is a relief to report that Salt is professionally executed as well as being an exciting thriller with a surprise ending.

Evelyn Salt (Jolie) is seemingly astonished when, during her interrogation of defector Oslov (Olbrychski), he announces that a Russian spy called Evelyn Salt is to kill the Russian President in New York . Denying she works for the Russians and using the skills that she has honed working as an undercover spy for the CIA , Evelyn goes on the run. Ted Winter (Schreiber) who believes she might be innocent of the charges, and William Peabody (Ejiofor), who states that, because she has run off, Salt must be guilty, both go in pursuit of her. As she escapes, Evelyn attempts to contact her husband Mike (August Diehl) a German arachnologist. When she fails to reach him on her mobile phone, she realises that something must have happened to him. Having already established that she can speak fluent Russian, a series of flashbacks show us Evelyn's past in Russia and later we see how she became involved with her husband. There are many twists and turns in this exciting thriller, which keeps you on your toes as you try to work who are the “bad” people and who are the “good” ones.

With her blonde hair, later dyed black to aid her disguise as she tries to evade capture by her former CIA comrades, Jolie makes a beautiful spy – or even a non-spy, including when she pretends to be a man. The stunts are nail biting and apparently Jolie performs many of them herself. Ejiofor is fast making a name for himself in Hollywood and he gives a competent if not earth-shattering performance here. Director Noyce has brought us a well-crafted picture, in which all the pieces of the complicated jigsaw of events finally gel together. For example, towards the end of the film we realise why, when she calls into her home just after escaping from the CIA , Evelyn draws some venom for one of her husband's spiders,

Ultimately, the test of a thriller is whether it excites and here the chases are well executed, there is a wealth of knuckle-whitening moments and most importantly, the audience does not know which way the story will end. Which is how it should be.