Salon.com > Salt

“Realism” is in the eye of the beholder

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 14:01:00 +0000

Part 1 of critic/filmmaker Jim Emerson's film editing series "In the Cut" dissected the jail transfer sequence from Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight." Part 2 examines an absurd but intricately imagined set piece from last year's "Salt," directed by veteran Australian filmmaker Philip Noyce ("A Clear and Present Danger," "Rabbit-Proof Fence").

After railing against "incoherent" shots and cuts in "The Dark Knight," Emerson finds more to like in the scene that finds heroine Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie) escaping her CIA colleagues after being unmasked as a Russian mole, then leaping from an overpass onto the roof of an 0nrushing semi. Although the action here is as ridiculous as anything in the "Dark Knight" chase, and the pace is nearly as relentless, Noyce's compositions, camera moves and cuts are more exact. As a result, the scene's sense of geography is more coherent, and there's less of a nagging feeling that certain moments are being "cheated" in the editing room.

“Unknown”: The thriller “Inception” wishes it could be

Fri, 18 Feb 2011 02:01:00 +0000

What do you get when you combine an A-minus cast that seems almost randomly assembled; an identity-loss plot that Mixmasters bits of "Inception," "Memento," "Salt" and perhaps a half-dozen other movies; wintry Berlin locations; and a little-known Spanish director who is arguably most famous for making a horror film with Paris Hilton? To my enormous surprise, what you get in "Unknown" is a stylish and muscular thriller with some nifty twists and turns, a wicked sense of humor, several terrific performances and not one or even two but three of the best car chases in recent action-flick history. All of which, I guess, illustrates William Goldman's famous maxim of the movie business, which can equally be applied to the world in general: Nobody knows anything.

“Salt”: Angelina Jolie’s dazzling action spectacle

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 11:01:00 +0000

"Salt" is a well-greased, smoothly functioning machine that drives forward with tremendous momentum, elevating your pulse rate and relieving you of the need to think for more than a second or two at a stretch. Now, am I talking about "Salt" the spy thriller, directed by the capable genre veteran Phillip Noyce? Or am I talking about Evelyn Salt, the renegade CIA agent played by Angelina Jolie, who must shed her Manolos and sex-bomb designer suit to become an unstoppable force of pistol-packing vengeance? Well, the wonder of this would-be summer action hit, which manages the neat trick of being slippery and deceptive without possessing the least intellectual ambition, is that the description fits both flavors of Salt.