Salt is pouty, silly and entertaining and I'm all for imagery and symbolism.
Rotten Tomatoes tells me that a lot of you have flocked the theatres to see that actress with the lips and the hair that make you want to lecture God about equality and justice. South of the border, Americans have collectively shelled out $70.8 million to see this woman get a serious workout on the freeway and look even sexier, if that’s possible, with a lot of clothes on.
Tonight, our double bill has something in common. They are at times a little fantastic and outrageous, but that’s beside the point because their stories intrigue and grip you. Put your Kleenex away, put your thinking cap on and proceed to move your butt to the edge of your seat.
Who is Salt, asks one film. Who is Malcolm Rivers, asks the other.
Although I find the Malcolm Rivers question a far more intriguing one, Philip Noyce’s Salt still hooks me almost equally, if almost all purely from adrenaline rush.
In Identity, the fate of Malcolm Rivers, a convicted serial killer to be executed in a few hours, is turned as new evidence comes up which could win him an insanity plea. He is now being transported out of death row for a midnight trial. After this scene, the atmosphere is switched on, almost like a light bulb. We meet 11 interesting mix of characters: a sex worker, a washed-up actress and her ex-cop limo driver, a young couple whose hours-old marriage is already poised for a divorce battle, a sketchy motel manager, a cop transporting a convict, and a good old family unit that’s about to get smaller (dying, injured mother). They are all stranded in a makeshift island created by the throaty dark clouds dumping atmosphere from above them. Yes, this set-up sounds too strategic and cliché, and it is, but there’s a wonderful atmosphere created here, helped by the spliced narrative and really scared, really frustrated cast of characters.
Their scene opens in media res: A man (bespectacled, side-parted hair, the whole geek look) bursting through the door, inauspicious weather behind him, woman dripping rain and blood in his arms. What follows is compelling storytelling, showing us a deluge of captivating cause-and-effect scenes that intersect to one large effect: The freeze-framed shot of woman limp in her husband’s arms.
This is me watching Identity, torn, especially when the story itself suffers from multiple personality disorder towards the end.
Michael Cooney’s screenplay is a carefully intricate story that is amped up to greater effect by intersecting fractured scenes without ever feeling gimmicky. The result is an atmosphere overhanging with anticipation, a fitting backdrop to the characters dying off one by one, following the tradition of whodunit paranoia and finger-pointing.
Although the plot seems awfully familiar, there’s a twist three quarters of the way as the story seems to veer off to magical realism and expose the red herring for what it is. However, as a trade off for this whodunit misdirection, a greater thriller emerges.
Salt is a mystery of identity as well. In dramatic fashion, a Russian renegade accuses Salt of being a Russian spy. While the story casts doubt in our female CIA officer, we question our own allegiance to her: Do we believe this charismatic heroine on the screen who earns our trust just by her disarming looks or do we follow the trail of suspicion?
The incluing of Salt’s past happens way after we’ve already wavered from trusting she’s a loyal CIA agent to questioning whether she could be a mole to defending her in our minds that, mole or not, she probably has good intentions to fully forming her allegiance in our heads. Through some long and compelling chase scenes, we are propelled into the ticking clock scenario of a Russian mole about to assassinate the Russian president on American soil in order to incite a Russian-American war and a global American hatred.
This is an arresting story, not so much plot-wise, but character-wise. We are compelled to watch Jolie progressively defeat bigger and bigger odds. It’s entertaining to watch her outrun her CIA colleagues by jumping off a bridge and onto speeding vehicles below, leaping off a helicopter onto a body of water, sliding down an elevator shaft and, the most low-key and unintentionally laughable moment: Walking out of a pileup, swarmed by her chasers, unnoticed. Who knew suspected Russian spies possessed superhuman powers and had stolen the famous invisibility cloak from a certain kid wizard from Hogwarts? Silly or not, Jolie’s Salt turns on the charm and the adrenaline and infects you with curiosity.
Funny enough, Identity and Salt both use handcuffs (worn) as an ingenious weapon towards the end, and the question of who used it in more effective, surprising and dramatic fashion is for you to find out.
