MovieChat Forums > Salt (2010) Discussion > It's a decent film, but it would have be...

It's a decent film, but it would have been better... (Spoilers)

posted 12 years ago by Skye_Reynolds
4 replies | jump to latest

Salt is a decent film, but it would have been better if they hadn't tried to fake out the audience. This sleeper agent storyline might have been fine if they had gone with a male protagonist as originally intended, but when they hired on Angelina Jolie and decided to advertise her as the Ultimate Female Action Hero, it really would have been better if they didn't spend a third of the movie telling us that she's evil and we should probably hate her. They should have modified it so that we knew from the start that she had been set up. That invites us to cheer for her from the start instead of having that awkward period where the fights and escapes are choreographed as if we're supposed to support her, but we're being told that she's a Soviet spy out to start a war between the US and Russia.

The twist is obvious, however much of a copout the faked assassination may be, but there's still that bit of doubt. Is the director really going to do something sincerely stupid and make her out to kill the president? I'm usually not for changing the subject matter to suit a change in protagonist, but I think that they should have done it in this occasion. If they want to pick up the mantel and say that this is the go to example for a female action hero, they should have let us know that she was the hero from the start so that the audience could have full solidarity in their support for her.

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"In literature, it's called plagiarism. In the movies, it's homage" ~ Roger Ebert

[–] Impulse_TJ16 12 years ago

Umm, if you couldn't tell she's the hero from the start, the little nuances she had about her husband, the look in her eyes and on her face when they killed him in front of her, the things she was taking with her when she was on the run, you could just tell she wasn't actually going along with the plan when looking at it in hindsight. I thought it was intriguing that they made her out to be the actual bad guy at first but that her allegiance had changed when she met her husband. If you watch the Directors cut you'll find that the movie is better put together than the theatrical version. There are scenes in there that make things make more sense.

You had my curiosity, now you have my attention
http://tinyurl.com/a4havet

[–] Skye_Reynolds 12 years ago

The twist was obvious. The real twist would have been if they had decided to play things straight and make her an assassin, but that also would have been quite stupid. One option is predictable and the other is just bad cinema. I think it would have been better if they hadn't tried to fake the audience out and had instead just made it intentionally clear that she was the hero.

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"In literature, it's called plagiarism. In the movies, it's homage" ~ Roger Ebert

[–] Impulse_TJ16 12 years ago

They did. Once again, it was quite clear that she was going to be the hero since the movie was about her in the first place and not someone else. That's a given. The "twist" wasn't that she was actually a spy, the twist was that she was a spy and that she is actually going against the very people who made her into what she is.

She IS an assassin, just because she kills the bad guys doesn't make her not an assassin. Also, if you really pay attention to the directors cut like I mentioned previously you'll see the little nuances from the start of the film that shows that she is, indeed, the hero.

You had my curiosity, now you have my attention
http://tinyurl.com/a4havet

[–] Skye_Reynolds 12 years ago

Even without watching the director's cut, the fact that she spares the lives of her pursuers is a strong argument in favor of her innocence. It still seems unnecessary to try and fake the audience out. Again, I could understand doing that with Tom Cruise, or even Angie herself if they didn't make such a big deal out of her being the face of female action heroes, but the fact of the matter is that they did take it upon themselves to make her the Ultimate Female Action Hero and so it is a little awkward when they're sending mixed signals about her.

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"In literature, it's called plagiarism. In the movies, it's homage" ~ Roger Ebert