- Story -

Evelyn Salt is a CIA agent who is well thought of by those she works with, including her boss, Ted Winter. When a Russian spy confides in them that there's to be an assassination attempt carried on out on the president of Russia while he's in NYC attending a funeral, their shocked to hear that the assassin he names is Evelyn. Her boss starts to wonder if she is indeed a mole and what her motives may be after her sudden and rather eyebrow-raising reaction to hearing the spys accusations. Can she really be planning to kill the Russian president, or is she being framed? is she innocent or guilty? who is the real Evelyn Salt? you'll have to watch the movie to find out.


- Thoughts & Opinions -

To start with, yes this is a movie starring Angelina Jolie and yes as I mentioned in previous reviews, I've developed a pretty strong dislike for her, though to be fair I added this title to my rental list some months ago as far as I remember, which was before I'd decided I had such a strong dislike for her performances, so thats my excuse as far as thats concerned lol. Yes again she plays the gun toting, attitude laden main character who's out on a mission and in this case, the mission is rather perilous and we're treated to plenty of gunfights and a good few car chase scenes, which tend to go down well in my book and sure enough, as far as the action was concerned, I certainly found it quite entertaining.

Onto the plot and this is, fairly obviously, where the movie falls down. Its the old US vs Russia 'game' with suspicions of there being a mole (or two) in the CIA, it reminded me of a series of the TV show 24, only the movie was a heck of a lot shorter than that (which is probably just as well, that show was kind of 'bled to death' so to speak, which was a shame) - I felt that the story smacked of paranoia overall though and it really didn't seem very original to me. Having said that, the movie is mostly a basic action movie I suppose and as far as watching it to be entertained, for the visual effects, gunfights and fast moving car/bike (plus a lorry or two!) scenes, its pretty good.

I felt that the story was confusing at the start, as a viewer I was a bit confused about Evelyn's motives, although that was almost certainly done on purpose to peak our interests to find out more about her, I found it more annoyingly confusing than anything else, I suppose, if that makes sense(?). We see some flashbacks that relate to her 'training' as a child in Russia and we're given different clues about her background and you may feel pretty sure of some things although there are one or two plot twists in which we realise that perhaps the lines are blurred as far as some people are concerned - also as the movie unfolds, the scale of whats to come slowly becomes more clear which increases the suspense - by the time the truth as far as who's the good guy and who's the villain comes out, that scene is quite tense, with one character having to hold in their rage as their separated by a thin glass wall - thats a bit of a James Bond type moment but I won't go into any detail for fear of spoiling the movie for anyone. Suffice to say, its far from impossible to figure out most of the plot details in this movie but it still has some appeal as a decent action 'flick' - infact I would argue that Jolie's performance here is better (debatably more tolerable perhaps) than in some other movies - at least she didn't seem to annoy me as much as she has in other movies anyway lol.

Also regarding the story, when the big attack is about to be launched near the end of the movie, as in other movies I found it a bit too coincidental the timing of the prompts and suchlike, though I don't feel that it totally spoiled the movie, it just made it a bit cheesier I suppose.

At the end of the day, this movies main attraction is the action with some suspense and I'd say that as far as those aspects are concerned, their handled pretty well, so its worth watching for that. If your a bigtime cynic (so to speak) then I'd imagine your main reaction to this movie, in terms of analysing the themes and the plot and probable holes within that, would be to roll your eyes and shake your head, at a guess.


- Would I Recommend It? -

Yes, I'd recommend it for the entertainment factor, though overall its nothing particularly original, I found it quite entertaining, there are plenty of action scenes and the performances are pretty decent. Its not the kind of movie that I think you'd be likely to want to pick out from the crowd some months afterwards but its certainly entertaining and it doesn't go on for an unnecessary amount of time - for what it is, its decent enough to pass the time and provides some good visual effects, explosions and chase scenes, so for that yes, I reckon I would recommend this.

Thanks for reading my review, I hope you found it useful and thanks for all rates and comments. This review was oiginally posted on Ciao UK.