History Film / Salt

''Salt'' is an American action thriller film directed by Phillip Noyce, written by Kurt Wimmer and Brian Helgeland, and starring Creator/AngelinaJolie, Creator/LievSchreiber, and Creator/ChiwetelEjiofor. Jolie plays Evelyn Salt, a member of the CIA assigned to the Russian desk who is accused of being a KGB sleeper agent, and goes on the run to try to clear her name.

* UsefulNotes/ColdWar: Even though it's set in present day, the roots of the conflict can be traced back here.

''Salt'' is an American action thriller film directed by Phillip Noyce, written by Kurt Wimmer and Brian Helgeland, and starring Creator/AngelinaJolie, Creator/LievSchreiber, and Creator/ChiwetelEjiofor. Jolie plays Evelyn Salt, a member of the CIA assigned to the Russian desk who is accused of being a KGB sleeper agent, and goes on the run to try to clear her name. While Creator/TomCruise was initially secured for the lead, he was unable to commit to the role because of commitments to other projects, and the script was ultimately rewritten for Jolie.

Filming took place on location in Washington, DC and New York City between March and June 2009. Jolie was taken to the hospital after suffering a head injury on set but was released the same day where filming resumed. The film opened in North America on July 23, 2010.

* RuleOfCool: Slat pulls off all sorts of crazy stunts.

* AntiHero: Salt, who goes deep into it after [[spoiler: Mike's death.]] She's moral enough spare everyone she can, even when it would have been far easier to kill them.

* NonLethalWarfare: A ''lot'' of it and all justified, since Salt is trying to prove her innocence and it would be hard to do so after murdering so many people that tried to stop her. Until [[spoiler: Mike is drowned]], Salt uses only non-lethal attacks, knocking her enemies out or beating them unconscious. This even icludes using fire-arms, which are used as last resort and strictly to take people out of combat, not to kill them. When she starts killing, [[spoiler: her targets are strictly limited to the sleeper agents]].

* ReCut: Apart from the theatrical version, there's a Director's Cut and an Extended Cut, each with its own ending (the former has [[spoiler:a voice-over implying Salt is dead, and [[TheBadGuyWins the new president is a covert Russian agent]]]], and the latter [[spoiler:Salt escaping from the FBI, and leaving for Russia, where she kills Orlov - the scene with his death in the barge was cut - and destroys the facility where new agents are being created]])

* SequelHook: [[spoiler:The FBI chief frees Salt, on the promise she'll hunt the rest of the [[DeepCoverAgent KAs.]]]].

DefiantToTheEnd: [[spoiler: The US president]], who outright tells [[spoiler: Ted to go fuck himself]]. At a gunpoint. With all his personnel being mowed down in front of him mere seconds ago.

ForWantOfANail: [[spoiler: Salt convinces Ted to let her in and turn off the launching sequence... only for him to watch the news about miraculous recovery of the Russian president]].

* ForcedToWatch: Salt is forced to watch [[spoiler:her husband]] get drowned.

* CyanidePill: Subverted. Salt pretends to have swallowed one, just so should get into ER where she is able to overpower the surprised staff.

* ColdWar: Even though it's set in present day, the roots of the conflict can be traced back here.

* DrowningPit: The way Salt's [[spoiler husband dies]].

* DrowningPit: The way Salt's [[spoiler husband dies]].

!!Salt'' provides examples of:

* LifeImitatesArt: Just as the film was being released, real-life cases of sleeper agents implanted in the US were brought to light with a prisoner exchange between Russia and the US, some of the prisoners being undercover spies. The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegals_Program plots]] and [[http://theblemish.com/2010/10/anna-chapman-is-in-maxim-russia/: skills]] of the real sleeper agents were less impressive than the ones in the film.

* ViralMarketing: The film's producers ran a multi-week game where the player, being a rookie agent, is given the choice to assist Salt or turn her over to the government. If the player turned her over, the game ended. If the player helped her, [[spoiler: she used the player to assist her in eliminating other, deep-cover agents]]. After the last episode, she then [[spoiler: had the player trapped in an abandoned warehouse and then called the player's superior officer, who came and picked up the agent, presumably for arrest and punishment.]] The premise of the game was [[spoiler: the rookie agent unwittingly helped her (a Russian deep-cover mole) while thinking she was actually being framed for the crime.]]

''Salt'' is an American action thriller film directed by Phillip Noyce, written by Kurt Wimmer and Brian Helgeland, and starring Creator/AngelinaJolie, Creator/LievSchreiber, and ChiwetelEjiofor. Jolie plays Evelyn Salt, a member of the CIA assigned to the Russian desk who is accused of being a KGB sleeper agent, and goes on the run to try to clear her name. While Creator/TomCruise was initially secured for the lead, he was unable to commit to the role because of commitments to other projects, and the script was ultimately rewritten for Jolie.

'''''Salt'' provides examples of:'''

** There are several JamesBond shoutouts, including the whole North Korean sequence from ''Film/DieAnotherDay'' and Orlov's switchblade shoe from ''Film/FromRussiaWithLove''. Both are entirely factual, but likely to have been shout outs.

''Salt'' is an American action thriller film directed by Phillip Noyce, written by Kurt Wimmer and Brian Helgeland, and starring Creator/AngelinaJolie, Liev Schreiber, and ChiwetelEjiofor. Jolie plays Evelyn Salt, a member of the CIA assigned to the Russian desk who is accused of being a KGB sleeper agent, and goes on the run to try to clear her name. While TomCruise was initially secured for the lead, he was unable to commit to the role because of commitments to other projects, and the script was ultimately rewritten for Jolie.

* ActionGirl

* AntiHero: Evelyn Salt lives on the edge of NominalHero, and goes deep into it after [[spoiler: Mike is killed.]] She is moral enough spare everyone she can, even when it would have been far easier to kill them.
* {{Awesome McCoolname}}: Evelyn Salt.
* BecomingTheMask: Salt was originally only using her husband as a cover to gain entry to North Korean territory for the CIA, but his rescue of her when she was capture lead to genuine love, [[spoiler: which lead her to betray her ''real'' superiors, the Russians who later had him killed.]]
* {{Beauty Is Never Tarnished}}: While she did end up with a nasty black eye, Salt's underarm was somehow perfectly hairless in the torture scene.
* {{Bifauxnen}}: Salt spends the last twenty minutes of the movie sporting a short haircut and men's clothes, in disguise as a male soldier. It's AngelinaJolie. [[FetishFuel Nuff said]].
* BorrowedBiometricBypass: No surgery is involved, but [[spoiler: Winter]] does use the unconscious[[spoiler:(dead, in the director's cut)]] President's fingerprints to confirm the launch codes.
* BrainwashedAndCrazy: The fanatical sleeper agents, especially [[spoiler: Winter and the suicide bomber who used being a NATO agent and White House liaison as his cover.]]

** More like [[spoiler: [[IncrediblyLamePun Chenkov's gun]].]] Am I right?

* CombatStilettos: Defied. One of the first thing she does when she goes on the run is take off her heels. She wears flat boots for the rest of the movie.
* ConservationOfNinjutsu: When you consider that Salt is tearing through scads of presumably highly-trained Secret Service agents.

* DescriptionCut: Peabody, Winter and other agents are discussing how hard it would be for Salt to break into St Bart's chapel, then we see her crawling along the sewers.
* DirtyCommunists:
* DyeOrDie: Evelyn Salt is blonde. While on the run, she paints it black (and at a certain point, cuts it in order to [[spoiler: disguise herself as a man]]).
* {{Expy}}: Angelina Jolie [[spoiler: [[MrAndMrsSmith as a sleeper agent assassin who Turns Against Her Masters because she fell in love with her cover husband.]]]]

* FakingTheDead: [[spoiler: The Russian President]]. Also, does anyone really think [[spoiler: Liev Schrieber's character]] ''won't'' be back for the sequel?

* GenderFlip: The part of Salt was originally written for a man, "Edwin Salt", and TomCruise was considered, but thought the character was too similar to Ethan Hunt in ''Film/MissionImpossible''. The part was eventually changed to a female character and very few changes were made, although there was originally a different sequence in which [[spoiler: [[DistressedDude Salt saves her husband]]]], [[UnfortunateImplications which was changed]] because it seemed to [[ARealManIsAKiller "castrate" the male character too much]]. Uhh...
* [[spoiler: GoodIsNotNice]]

* HandyCuffs: A spectacularly silly example, as [[spoiler: Salt had previously just beaten the piss out of several cops and Secret Service agents with her bare hands. Not that it matters. When they cuff her hands behind her back at the end, she still manages to kill Winters.]]
* HeelFaceTurn: It is unclear when, but somewhere down the line, [[spoiler: Salt stopped being a Russian agent, though it most probably happened when [[LoveRedeems she fell in love with Mike]].]]
* IJustShotMarvinInTheFace: Pistol whips abound in this movie.
* ImprovisedWeapon

* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler: Subverted - just as it looks as though Ted is going get away with everything, Salt strangles him to death.]]
* KickTheDog: After [[spoiler: Ted mows down everyone in the bunker, while Ted is talking with the president]], one woman pops her head out, behind a chair, to have a look around. She is promptly shot in the face, because we weren't sure how evil he was after we laughed at the National Security Advisor joke.

** Note that his is partially justified in the film, as the agent are mentioned to first learn English before even learning Russian.
* MeaningfulName: Ted Winter [[spoiler: whose name subtly recalls Russia.]]

* MsFanservice / BestKnownForTheFanservice: Twenty years from now, the movie might be remembered as "the film where AngelinaJolie takes off her knickers" (not that she actually revealed anything...).
** And in the process, she creates the luckiest security camera in that ever existed. Of course, given that she had any number of other articles of clothing she could have used, the fact that she used her ''panties'' of all things is a bit silly.
** Doubles as VisualPun of her "going commando".
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Russian president Boris Matveyev bears more than a passing resemblance to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Yeltsin Boris Yeltsin]]; is name isn't exactly very differentiated from [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitry_Medvedev Dimitri Medvedev]]'s either...
** Salt's male disguise looks suspiciously like [[TomCruise the guy she would've been]] had they not changed the script.
* NotHelpingYourCase: Salt immediately goes on the run after she is accused of being a Russian sleeper agent with orders to assassinate the president of Russia, leaving American law enforcement no choice but to chase her.

** This actually causes a minor plot hole at the end (in the theatrical release, at least), because [[spoiler:Winter doesn't actually kill the President in that version, meaning that when he wakes up from his TapOnTheHead he can tell everyone the truth about Winter and Salt]]. The hole was closed with the director's cut, wherein [[spoiler:Winter puts a bullet in the unconcious President's head to ensure his silence]].

* RealityEnsues: For the bulk of the film, Jolie's rather serious mass/strength disadvantages are ignored in her fight scenes....until she goes up against Schreiber's character.

* RuleOfCool: For all we know, Evelyn Salt is WonderWoman's sister, taking into consideration all the crazy stuff she is able to pull off in the film.
* SequelHook: [[spoiler:The FBI chief frees Salt, on the promise she'll hunt the rest of the [[DeepCoverAgent KAs.]]]] Absent from both {{ReCut}}s (see above).
** That scene is present in the Director's Cut, in addition to the further implication that [[spoiler:one of the [=KAs=] is now the new American President. Though in the same voiceover they mention Salt is dead, that might be a cover-up.]]

** Of course, doing this makes the first half of the movie a violent rescue movie and the second half of the movie a kind of revenge movie. Both are normally styles of film reserved exclusively for male protagonists, yet Salt pulls off the lead role being at least as bad-ass as any male action hero.
* ShoutOut: When Ted [[spoiler:reveals his TrueColors by shooting down most of the President's Cabinet in the bunker]], the National Security Advisor is gunned down after stating his position in a futile attempt to be spared. This is a reference to ''Film/AirForceOne'', in which Russian operatives also killed the National Security Advisor during an attempted coup on the titular plane.
** Also several shoutouts to the Bond films, including the whole North Korean sequence from ''Film/DieAnotherDay'' and Orlov's switchblade shoe from ''Film/FromRussiaWithLove''. Both are entirely factual, but likely to have been shout outs.
** The way Salt dyes her hair and employs various disguises is reminiscent of the ''Film/MissionImpossible'' films and the TV show ''Series/{{Alias}}''.
** She also refers to herself as a "patsy" at one point--possibly a reference to Lee Harvey Oswald, mentioned in the beginning of the film, who referred to himself as such in relation to JFK's assassination.

* StunGuns: Salt uses a Taser to knock out and then "puppeteer" a police car driver.

** Which is immediately answered lower in the poster with "Angelina Jolie".
* TheReveal: [[spoiler: Ted Winter. He's actually another sleeper agent.]]
* TomatoSurprise: [[spoiler:All the trailers imply that Salt is being framed, and throughout the first half of the movie she certainly acts like it. Then it turns out she ''is'' a DeepCoverAgent and has been concealing it from her coworkers, her husband and the audience this whole time.]]
* TwistEnding
* ViewerFriendlyInterface: A completely unnecessary [[spoiler: "Nuclear Launch Sequence"]] progress bar.
* ViralMarketing: The producers of SALT ran a multi-week game where the player, being a rookie agent, is given the choice to assist Salt or turn her over to the government. If the player turned her over, the game ended. If the player helped her, [[spoiler: she used the player to assist her in eliminating other, deep-cover agents]]. After the last episode, she then [[spoiler: had the player trapped in an abandonded warehouse and then called the player's superior officer, who came and picked up the agent, presumably for arrest and punishment.]] The premise of the game was [[spoiler: the rookie agent unwittingly helped her (a Russian deep-cover mole) while thinking she was actually being framed for the crime.]] Pretty mind-blowing, huh?
* WaifFu: Ms Jolie has never looked thinner but has no problem chucking men twice her size around.

* WhoShotJFK: "In 1959, Lee Harvey Oswald visited Russia. The guy who returned was an agent named Alek"
* WouldNotShootAGoodGuy: If you notice carefully, Salt never kills any of the "good" guys, she knocks them out with darts, non-lethal venom and painful but not deadly martial arts moves. She only kills [[spoiler: Orlov, Winter and the other Russian sleeper agents.]]
** Half of the things she did would kill someone such as the makeshift rpg.
* WouldHitAGirl.

* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler: Averted - just as it looks as though Ted is going get away with everything, Salt strangles him to death.]]

''Salt'' is an American action thriller film directed by Phillip Noyce, written by Kurt Wimmer and Brian Helgeland, and starring Creator/AngelinaJolie, Liev Schreiber, and ChiwetelEjiofor. Jolie plays Evelyn Salt, who is accused of being a KGB sleeper agent, and goes on the run to try to clear her name. While TomCruise was initially secured for the lead, he was unable to commit to the role because of commitments to other projects, and the script was ultimately rewritten for Jolie.

* JumpOffABridge: Salt escapes from her fellow [=CIA=] agents at one point in this way.