Or an aeroplane made of BICEPS

Once upon a time, some people hatched upon an idea for a film.  “Let’s make a film about an undercover agent, who’s so far under cover, NO-ONE knows who he’s working for any more!  Not even him!”

“Awesome!” said some other dudes.  “And there can be car chases and gun-fights and explosions!”

“…And spiders!” said Brian, from the back.

“And there’ll be a torture scene,” the other dudes continued, “And bombs, and we can blow up a church.”  They continued in this vein, getting more and more excited about the idea, until one of them (not Brian, who was playing with an orbweb he’d found) said, “But who are we going to get to play this guy?”

And the conversation went quiet.  “Er,” said one of them, “Jason… Statham?”

“Nah, he needs to speak Russian.”

“Russell Crowe?”

“GOD no.  And he’s still too busy getting fellated by Ridley Scott.”

The conversation fell silent as they contemplated the options.  They needed someone serious, energetic, stealthy, Russian-speaking and with the personal chutzpah to carry such a multifaceted title role.

“Angelina Jolie!” said Brian.

The other guys looked at him.  “Brian,” someone said, “I don’t know if anyone’s ever told you, but Angelina Jolie has a vagina.”

Brian blinked a few times.  “So?” he said.

Image: Columbia Pictures.

AND THUS, I assume, SALT WAS BORN.  True story – it was written with a bloke in mind for the title role, but the part ended up in Angelina Jolie’s bony little hands.  And she does well!  She does really well.  I say this quite apart from my love of good old Ange’s acting – she’s severe, stalwart and precise, which is exactly what the role needs.

But you can see the seams where they’ve added things in or changed things so that the role is “more suitable for a woman”.  There aren’t many things.  Hell, she casts aside her heels in favour of being barefoot in order to escape the CIA and make a rocket launcher out of a table leg and a fire extinguisher.

But there are things.  It’s a shame.  Like, at the beginning when, as I said, she makes a rocket launcher out of cleaning products, spit and hope – she’s been using the fire extinguisher to blind the CCTV cameras as she goes, and when she starts to need that for her improvised explosive device, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING comes to her brilliant mind, apparently, to cover the camera in the room OTHER THAN HER PANTS.

You heard me.  Evelyn Salt, the master of improvised brilliance and clawing her way out of a corner, is stumped by the plethora of chemicals at her disposal and chooses to blind a camera with her (small, black, lacy) panties.

Thanks, film-makers!  Because that’s what women would do, isn’t it.  Let us consider, for a moment, other (male) action heroes who have used their underwear to stealth past unwanted observers.  Do you remember that bit in Assassin’s Creed where Altaiir uses his pants to blindfold a guard so that he can stab up Robert de Sable?  Of course you don’t!  Because he didn’t.  (Presumably because he was a 12th century Assassin and I’m not sure if they even had pants).

If only the Womanification of Salt’s role had stayed at the occasional panty shot and her perplexingly ever-perfect hair.

Whenever she inflicts bloody violence, the cinematographic eye watching her is shaky and squeamish.  There’s a bit, for instance, where she smashes a bottle and glasses a man to death with it.  All you see of this action is her reaction, on her face.  And some squishy noises.  Let us compare the bit in Casino Royale where Bond smashes a man into a sink until he dies.  It’s gritty, hard, and completely unflinchingly filmed.  The focus is on Bond’s actions, rather than his reaction.  In Salt, the focus is most definitely on her own reactions to her violence rather than on the violence itself.

Her motivation stinks of “Oh those crazy, emotional women and their dependence on men!” I wish it didn’t.  I really do wish I didn’t have to tell you what I do now.  I mean, avoiding detailed spoilers and all, but Salt’s entire motivation to ruin the rules that held her previously was sparked by her marriage (she married for love, don’t you know!).  It’s very ham-fistedly plonked in, too.  It doesn’t fit with anything else we’re told about Salt.  It’s like we’re suddenly expected to believe that this hardened motherfucker who’s been through psychological programming, torture and worse is going to go all wounded vixen over a man.  Seriously?

That said, Salt’s husband (played by the eye-meltingly gorgeous August Diehl, previously familiar to me as the creepy uniformed Gestapo officer in Tarantino’s brilliant Inglourious Basterds last year) fills the role usually played by women in this sort of film perfectly.  He’s seen a few times, doing his thing (spiders, as it happens: thanks, Brian!) and glimpsed in emotional flashbacks and then ultimately used as a tool against Salt.

But does she really need this, and just this, to serve as the sole motivation for her actions?

Would a man?

I’m not sure.  I’m still mulling this one over.  From the way the events pan out, it looks like she’s been planning her defection from much earlier – but why?  There’s no satisfactory explanation given.  And it’s a big defection – not just something you could do on a whim.

All that said, it is a super film, and there’s a good chunk of gender-bending in it, too.  I do love my gender bending.  Angelina looks proper smashing as a bloke.  A bloke in uniform, no less.  Lovely.  You listening, Hollywood?  More like that, please!  Cross-dressing that isn’t put there for a cheap laugh!  Is it a first?  Possibly not, but it certainly made me happy.  Also, the fact that she ends up with short hair means that I wasn’t distracted and put off by the Swinging Curtain Of Unrealistic Feminine Follicular Perfection.

YOU SHOULD SEE THIS FILM BECAUSE:

• It’s fun
• Angelina Jolie is convincing and heroic
• She carries her own as practically the only woman in this male-dominated film with gravitas
• There’s SPIDERS
• There will be lots in it for you if you have a boner for violence

YOU SHOULD NOT SEE THIS FILM BECAUSE:

• Bond never twanged his pants at Scaramanga
• Oh god I have just had the best idea for Bond fanfiction ever

EDIT

The author would like to make it clear that neither he – nor his boyfriend – hold a negative view of homosexuality. Apologies to readers who felt this piece was written in a way which was open to that interpretation.

This site is a learning experience for all of us, and we hope you’ll keep reading.