Angelina Jolie: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

And 5 That Sucked...

5. Evelyn Salt - Salt (2010)

Writing a part for a specific actor can be a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it can make the part seem more convincing if the writer and actor understand each other, so that their personalities become reflected in the character. On the other hand, reshaping a role to a specific actor late in the day can have dangerous repurcussions on the overall execution of a story. Salt falls into the latter camp, with Jolie taking on a role originally written for Tom Cruise and failing to do it justice. Salt is a spy thriller directed by Philip Noyce, who previously worked with Jolie on The Bone Collector. At the beginning of the film, Salt is being tortured in a North Korean prison on suspicion of being a CIA operative; she is released in a prisoner exchange and returns to active duty. Two years later, Salt is interrogating a man believed to be a Russian mole, who informs her that she is a 'KA', one of several Russian sleeper agents who will assassinate the Russian President in a matter of days. Salt is detained but escapes and goes on the run to clear her name. Salt is a rather old-fashioned thriller being told in a 21st-century style, with more emphasis on pyrotechnics than a believable plot. Its story of sleeper agents and Russian infiltration would have made a decent film during the Cold War, but it doesn't feel topical or exciting enough to pass muster in the post-Bourne age. Jolie's performance has a lot to do with this: she hits all her marks in the action scenes but is rather flat when delivering dialogue. Without a strong connection to the leading character, there's nothing to stop Salt from seeming ever more chaotic and forgettable.