Well, it didn’t suck.
SALT is the new Angelina Jolie thriller. It was directed by Phillip Noyce and co-stars Liev Schreiber (Sabretooth from “X-Men”) and Chiwetel Ejiofor (“2012”). It was “written” by Kurt Wimmer. I put “written” in quotations because the screenplay, which involves Angelina Jolie as a CIA agent who might also be a Soviet spy, sort of functions on the level of an outline for a better thriller. All the dialogue is distinctly devoid of any colorful embellishment, creative synonyms, jokes, or the usual eccentricities that help enable actors to create distinct characters. If I’m not mistaken, only five characters in this movie actually had names. One of those five was contained to a single scene in the beginning and another is mainly seen through flashbacks. The President and the Russian Vice President are also around, but they serve mainly as assassination targets not people. This leaves Jolie, her CIA boss Schreiber, a counterterrorism dude played by Ejiofor, and countless unnamed security guards, spies, and thugs who are about to be dispatched very effectively by the aforementioned. There are twists in the story but they are about as unpredictable as you can expect from a story with only three characters. Nevertheless, I was surprised by how clueless the movie was willing to make the Americans look in order to further the plot. The USA looks like those poor pathetic white guys that find themselves in games with the Harlem Globetrotters. I mean, we are just getting schooled in this movie. Don’t worry; we still win, kind of.
There’s a worn-out movie critic cliché that describes autopilot Hollywood plots as “interrupted by action sequences and the inevitable car chase climax, etc. etc.” This much used sentence infers that the movie would be better if the makers didn’t feel the need to supplement an interesting story with a car chase just because action movie needs at least one. That cliché doesn’t work here; in fact it is the other way around. The substandard plot, dialogue, and characters in this movie are distractions from otherwise decent action sequences and chase scenes. The movie moves when the action moves and comes to a standstill when people stop to talk. Given that it is probably easier to write witty dialogue than coordinate a decent action sequence, it is odd how this movie didn’t just throw the script through the writer’s mill again or ask the actors to improvise some lines on the spot. I mean come on, there’s got to be at least one Russian spy out there with a sense of humor. Right?
This movie does something exceedingly wise and practical. It limits Salt’s physical stunts to what is humanly possible. Whether she is improvising a rocket launcher, jumping back and forth between trucks on a highway, or scaling the side of a building, the character is never doing something that is completely impossible. I can’t tell you how much more exciting it is when the action limits itself to reality. We are at point in the history of special effects blockbusters where almost anything is possible and everything is being done. But the movies tend to forget that large explosions that can be outrun and machine guns that don’t hit anything are not nearly as effective as a simple knife efficiently used. When special effects don’t conform to reality they do not excite, they desensitize. SALT, though ludicrous in plot, does essentially belong in the real world, and in that sense is better than most action movies
It could be better of course. One particular way it can be is by using longer shots. There’s this particular sequence when Jolie’s stunt double is descending an elevator shaft by jumping from steel beams one story at a time. This would be a pretty cool thing to see in the entirety, but the movie cuts the camera angle just before the entire jump is cleared. What this basically means to the astute viewer is that an actual stunt jump was never really completed. The fat dude in the editing room did the trickery not the actor. Now I’m not saying that Jolie’s stunt double should have risked her health and safety to get the shot; I’m just saying it would be really cool if she did. All the great action movie stars take those chances. It is what separates a bona fide athlete like Jackie Chan and Tony Jaa from the fakesters that stand around with their big muscles and big guns and look really pretty while shooting enemies from a comfortable distance. (I have a feeling that “The Expendables” coming later this August is going to be sooo pretty).
Buster Keaton wasn’t a big guy nor did he ever carry around a big gun, but he did always tell his camera man before every big stunt: “No matter what happens, don’t stop rolling unless I get killed.” And then Buster would do a take and almost get killed. He didn’t have special effects to help him. All he had was an acrobat’s training and mathematics. He either stood in an exact spot or else the falling side of a house would flatten him like a pancake till he was dead. There isn't any color or sound in a Buster Keaton movie but it nevertheless always exciting because when you see Buster Keaton almost get hit by a train in a movie, you know that in reality Buster Keaton was also Almost Hit by a Train. Angelina Jolie may have done a pretty good impression of courage under fire, but she is not a bona fide athlete. She simply looks pretty while pretending.
Is that unfair? Only if the audience doesn’t care. In Asia they certainly do, and they even go so far as turning the depiction of ordinary violence into pure works of art, hence the term, “Martial Arts.” The last great action movie I’ve seen is “Ong Bak,” starring Tony Jaa. Now that’s what I mean by a kick-ass movie. Literally, no strings attached, if you can believe that.
No comments:
Post a Comment