5 Things I learnt from: Salt

Today I look at the lady spy film Salt and attempt to rub some into a wound.

Oh please, did you really expect me to put a picture of her in her pants up? it's a PG13 blog people!

1. More underwear
Okay so it was only the opening scene, but Salt has been captured by North Korean agents as a spy and they are interrogating her... by pumping her full of liquids.... in her underwear. Again this is the only scene where she is dressed this way, but it sticks in your head. Not only because it features Angelina Jolie in her notably mentionable unmentionables but because it is the first scene, it sets the tone for the whole film, and ms Jolie in her wears says to me: "Hey this movie features a hot chick, so you should really enjoy this you sucker jawed youth".

And when one of the main man action heroes is this guy are you really surprised?

2. Male action heros love the sound of their own voice.
In Salt the main character will go large portions of time where she won't say anything, just skulk around the sides trying to put her plans into action, where as if you watch another action film with a male lead, you can barely go 10 minutes with out having either some piece of self-serving expositional dialogue or a narration of how they are thinking of taking a leak. But I don't blame the male leads I rather blame the Hollywood producers who believe that you can't get people to watch a movie unless there is a pair of breasts bouncing around on the screen, you want to know why the male heroes talk more, because they have to spoon feed the audience this romance that more often than not doesn't need to be in this movie. I mean imagine if in Romeo and Juliet Romeo had worked for the ISP (Italian Spy Peoples) do you really think with all the explosions and assassin's trying to get him he would have cared about the wet fish of a girl who was only interesting when he had nothing better to do? I think not.

This is what we in the biz call and "Indy in a fridge" Jr

3. Plot convenience is exacerbated
SO Salt manages to make it look like she killed the Russian President by shooing him full of spider venom that makes him look like he is dead and she knows this because her husband happened to be a spider studier/wrangler. How big a plot convenience is that? I mean really, in the Bourne movies aside from finding handy supplies of arms in various places it is all fairly well set up and conveniounce free.

After a male operative leaves / After a female operative leaves

4. Kill Frenzy is Fun Frenzy
So in a generic spy film, if the spy goes rouge then they kill everyone until they can get to the top guy and say 'wait don't shoot I didn't do it, see look at my smiley face'. While in Salt only the Russians get killed by Salt whilst the good pure and righteous Americans only get knocked out. I'm not saying this is better or worse, but it could be seen as a move towards avoiding a female anti-hero.


5. The Cold War is a new ideas bargin bucket

A game, a book and a movie

The Cold War escalated! The Russians were up to something! There a secret Soviets hiding in America! Why does it seem there is an out break of Cold War styled stories across all medias? Why can't we have that We Australians got mad with the Americans for some reason and tries to pull this same stunt? I would make about as much sense in this political climate.