I very rarely post reviews of movies, unless they really give me something different. Salt was one such movie. The thing that stands out throughout the movie? The villians.
In every conventional movie, the villian is given a lot of importance and story-building time. This is good, no doubt, but the humanizing factor is present mainly to explain to us the irrational objectives, and sometimes stretch-goals of villians. The only bond villian I really saw coming close to the Salt villians, was Drax, from Moonraker – “kill everyone on earth”, and even with that, I’m not sure what happens to those surviving in bunkers and air-filtered installations.
Salt is so obsessed with Salt herself, that thankfully the writers were perhaps ignorant of the villians and this is totally the way future movies should be written. There were no elaborate complicated plots for the goals they had. It was pretty damn simple, and in one case the villian even voices it, “Step two: Kill a million people. Piss off a billion Muslims.” I love it – precise, objective, measurable! What more could you want? We just see them doing stuff that is most certainly damaging, and pretty damn straight forward – kill presidents, launch nukes, kill an objective and measurable number of people (unlike a vague goal such as ‘bombing new york’ or whatever) – what’s not badass about that? The steps really seemed like a good way of pacing themselves, but whatever order they pulled it off, it really seemed like it’d cause world-wide chaos nevertheless.
Also loved how Salt’s actions were carefully detailed – who didn’t see the venom bullet being shot into the Russian president? This aspect goes exactly into the very thing I love about Perry Mason books - give the audience all the information that your star character has, and allow them the same previledges. There was no attempt to get stupid camera angles just so the audience is deliberately kept in the dark.
I must admit though, I was prepared to be amazed by a truly rule-breaking movie if Salt really were the villian. A couple of times, I actually wanted Salt to turn out to be the agent just to make a movie that was even more straight-forward and direct!
All in all, if you’re the types who loves dissecting characters, and following their thought-processes and trying to understand their allegiences and motivations, you’re going to love this one!
(I still maintain that The Expendibles has a legitimate place in this world.)
