Ladies In Action Pt. 1: "Salt"

Move over Stephen Segal, Hollywood is undergoing an invasion of serious butt-kicking females. More and more, the heroes of pulse-pounding action thrillers are turning into heroines. Their mission: to shoot, kick, punch, run, and explode their way through two hours of film and give the audience a cardio workout in the process. Are we experiencing a cinematic wave of feminism, or is Hollywood catering to Americans who can’t get enough of bombshells playing with bombshells?
One thing’s for sure, these gals mean business. The latest woman to put the fatale back in femme fatale is Angelina Jolie in her new film, “Salt.” Jolie plays Evelyn Salt, a renegade Russian spy in a plot that is so cliché and so well executed it nearly defines a genre.
All the usual suspects are here: Conspiring Russians, plots to assassinate government officials, friends who turn out to be enemies, bad guys who turn out good, and a heroine who always thinks on her toes and knows perhaps a little too much about the versatility of a fire extinguisher. The plot twists and turns in ways that only a really good action movie could get away with. And the chase scenes (which there are plenty of) will have you leaving the theater minus your fingernails.
Jolie’s beauty is not a matter of opinion anymore, so much as a fact. But like many other facts of the real world, “Salt” ignores it. You get the feeling that this is a woman who doesn’t mind a broken nail. Throughout the course of the film, Jolie gets beaten up, shot down, dressed as a man, covered in blood, sweat, and dirt, and generally put through hell, but she handles it like a pro, managing to give her adversaries a taste of their own medicine.
But like all hard-as-nails protagonists, it’s the troubles of the past that hardened Salt’s exterior. The wrongs done to her and her loved ones are what keep her and the film going full steam ahead. Though the story is a stretch, it latches onto a real emotional connection that even the most closed-minded audience members can relate to.
Pulling off unbelievable feats and making them believable is what makes action movies good. Pulling off unbelievable feats and making them entertaining is what makes action movies great. “Salt” does not underestimate its audience; it understands how we watch movies and utilizes that knowledge to institute perfect timing. It knows when it can get away with an implausible plot twist while upping our heart rates. Its aim is not to make the audience analyze, but to excite.
After watching “Salt” it seems like Angelina Jolie was born to play an action movie heroine. She has a catlike intensity that its self has enough to keep the energy up in a movie. Her movements overpower her good looks and keep us intent on what she will do next. In fact, if it came down to a combat between her and Stephen Segal, my money’s on Jolie.