By Jason Apuzzo. • In his review today, Todd McCarthy (formerly of Variety, and author of a very fine biography of Howard Hawks) confirms that re-born Russian communists – in the form of a long-dormant Soviet sleeper cell – are indeed the villains of the new film Salt. The goal of these Reds? To kill the current Russian president on American soil, and – I’m guessing here – take advantage of the resultant chaos to seize control back of Russia? The suspense in Salt apparently consists in the question of whether CIA agent Angelina Jolie, who was apparently captured and brainwashed in North Korea (shades of The Manchurian Candidate here), is part of the sleeper cell or not. I’m guessing not.
All of this may also suggest why, as we’ve reported here previously, Salt has already been banned in China.
I’m loving the sound of this, frankly, although I assume in penance for this neo-Cold War scenario the filmmakers will feel the need to take gratuitous pot shots at the CIA, and make them the ‘enemy lite’ of the piece. Still, you take what you can get, right?
We’ll be keeping an eye on all this. Here at LFM we’ve been documenting the return of Cold War fever (see here, here, here, here and even here), and I’m certainly looking forward to this latest outbreak. Jolie does an interesting interview on the film today, as does director Phillip Noyce (who did the early Jack Ryan films).
It’s hard not to have mixed feelings about Jolie at this point. What is undeniable, however, is that Jolie’s baroque, decadent personality in public is something that can work to her advantage on-screen in over-the-top-roles like this one. So few ‘stars’ nowadays actually have personalities; that’s obviously not a problem here. The question is whether middle America is really interested in following her any more. [By contrast, I expect this film to go gangbusters overseas.] We’ll find out, starting Friday.
The funny thing is how universally acknowledged it is (including by me) that Jolie is probably better at this stuff than 90% of the male action stars. That’s both a credit to her, and to some extent a rebuke of what passes for male action stars these days. I mean, I’ve been kidding a lot here lately about Adrien Brody being in Predators (he was also in King Kong, of course) – but this is the whole problem, isn’t it? Adrien Brody should not be battling aliens, unless you’re eager to have the aliens win. I’d feel more confident about Jolie under such circumstances. Wouldn’t you?
Oh, and one other juicy tidbit about the film from today: apparently Salt was originally intended for Tom Cruise … who opted instead for Knight and Day. Ouch.
Posted on July 19th, 2010 at 5:20pm.
It’s interesting that Hollywood is now finally interested in depicting the Cold War on screen (almost twenty years after it ended), though I’m still pretty surprised that they have Communists as villains in this. What I’m thinking is that Hollywood is so completely out of ideas that they finally had to turn to the one thing they haven’t done yet, which is have Communist villains. Still, it’s something. We’ll have to see if they cop out, as you pointed out they may, and also make the CIA villains. From what I’ve seen of the trailer, the CIA seemed more the source of villainy than anyone else, but maybe they’re trying not to give the Communist villainy thing away in order to appease the liberal PC crowd?
It’s possible that the communists are going to become the new Nazis for Hollywood: i.e., safe, dependable villains from the past who keep the industry from having to confront contemporary threats. Still, I consider this a positive development overall.
I second Trojan Horse’s skepticism. Why are we suddenly getting Communist villains now? Would have been nice if we’d gotten this more from Hollywood when the Soviets were actually. Now when the actual threat is Iran, Islamofascists, etc., now we get Russian Communists as villains.
I, for one, embrace our new communist bad guys.
Young people should know something about communism, before they get to live with it as a system.
So I guess the Chinese banned it because of the North Korea angle.
This is uncanny timing considering the recent arrest of the Russian spies in the U.S.
Insightful comments on Jolie. I cannot think of a single star under the age of 40 that I’d call a “male” star besides her. I read a few years ago that Hollywood has been searching for going on 30 years now for the next Steve McQueen, without success. What you have now are just pretty boys. They can’t act and they’re politics are junk. They’re as empty headed as a Ken Barbie doll. The only ones close are all over forty. Tom Cruise’s career is cruising into a ditch. Bruce Willis is still churning them out but is showing his age. Mel Gibson is imploding so fast that I’d call him a Dark Star. And this insistence on the identity politics of the gay agenda is beyond tiresome. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a libertarian and what law abiding, tax paying adults want to do in private is their business. It’s good that people can live their personal life as they see fit and without persecution, just keep it private like the rest of the world! And if I see that no talent hack Neal Patrick Harris in anything else, I’m tossing my cookies and my television out the window! The strategy seems to be for “C” actors like him is to declare yourself gay and your meager career is rescued.
My only quibble with this, John, would be that I don’t think they’ve been searching for the next Steve McQueen. I think they’ve been deliberately transforming the image of the male star for ideological reasons.
thus that’s why have to endure Neal Patrick Harris!
Yep.
My question is, how would assassinating Putin help the communists get back into power, they’re already back in power with him?
To comment on johngaltjkt and Jason’s exchange above – I agree, Hollywood has ideological reasons for not promoting traditional masculinity any more. They will never find another Steve McQueen, let alone another John Wayne or Clarke Gable, because any time they find an actor with those qualities, they try to weed it out of him or they don’t hire him at all. Just look at today’s male “stars” – Leonardo DiCaprio, Orlando Bloom, Johnny Depp, Adrien Brody, et al. They look like a strong wind would blow them over.
ditto