Barney's been around a bit, and if there's anything he likes almost as much as Joy Division, its the Movies...

Very much influenced by styles of David Lynch, expect Barney to enlighten you on what you must see, and what you must miss in the Dark of the Cinema.

You might remember Barney from such publications as the legendary Pavement mag, and he also writes film reviews weekly in the Sunday Star Times.

31 August 2010

Salt

Starring Angelina Jolie, Liev Schreiber, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Daniel Olbrychski, August Diehl, Hunt Block, Olek Krupa. Directed by Philip Noyce. 100 minutes.

**

Although Tom Cruise hasn't made many good career choices lately, not starring in spy thriller Salt appears to be one of his better ones.

Helmed by Australian Phillip Noyce, a man well versed in action-packed thrillers, Salt attempts to reignite Cold War anxiety by suggesting the Russians are indeed a sleeping giant, ready to attack the United States and destabilise the world. As we've recently discovered, America is well adept at undermining itself. The Russians need only stand back and watch the empire crumble.

Kicking off with some deserved torture of Angelina Jolie as CIA agent Evelyn Salt, the film quickly sets the scene for a series of daring escapes, as Salt flees her bosses after Russian defector, Orlov (Olbrychski), implicates her in a plot to bring down the government. The scenario is as ridiculous as the many humanly impossible jumps, dives and rolls executed by Salt, although each fall could easily be cushioned by Jolie's phenomenal lips.

Hollywood agents, in their desperation to keep their stars at the top of the pecking order, are constantly negotiating deals to position talent like Cruise and Jolie in films they should be advised to avoid. Thanks to Cruise's performance in Magnolia and Jolie's Academy Award winning role in Girl, Interrupted, we know über stars like these two can act. They simply choose not to.

Salt is a perfect example of much ado about nothing. Salt's plight, which vacillates between good spy/bad spy, is so poorly developed, as though chunks of the script went missing in the making, it's impossible to engage with her dilemma and its consequences. Schreiber, now married to Naomi Watts, always plays a prevaricating baddie, so we know what to expect from his character, CIA boss Ted Winter, as soon as he appears on screen.

It's still fun watching Winter shoot everyone in the War Room and smack the US president around, but the denouement doesn't wash as good storytelling, let alone great cinema. It simply makes you long for the days of Cold War films like Stanley Kubrick's Dr Strangelove.

Apparently Cruise turned down the role of Salt because he felt it was too close to his Mission Impossible character. Noyce and Salt's writers should have seen that as a sign they were on the wrong track. Instead, Noyce approached Jolie, with whom he'd already floated the idea of creating a female spy franchise, and Salt transmogrified into a woman. But, like fellow femmes Modesty Blaise and Fathom from a couple of cheesy '60s spy spoofs, Salt is more surface than substance.

Although it's commendable filmmakers see the earning potential of female action stars, increasing the range of roles women can play, $130 million spent making Salt is a crime against humanity. Jolie, meanwhile, will be laughing all the way to the baby bank.

* BARNEY MCDONALD



THE PITCH: Russia vs. America.

WATCH OUT FOR: Def Con 3.

(Courtesy Sunday Star Times)