Between Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, The Quiet American, and Salt (2010), director Phillip Noyce has arguably spent more time engaged in the Hollywood business of representing the American espionage business than any other Australian filmmaker. The last of this quartet, Salt was Noyce’s return to Hollywood action movie carpetbagging after abandoning his third (and in franchise terms the fourth) Jack Ryan film The Sum of All Fears (eventually directed by Phil Alden Robinson) to helm lower-budgeted, socially progressive historical dramas Rabbit-Proof Fence, The Quiet American, and To Catch a Fire. I wouldn’t say his time on those smaller-scale productions significantly altered his modus operandi on his return to big-budget action filmmaking: like Patriot Games, the villains in Salt are clearly delineated, culturally demarcated, and thoroughly unheroic and non-American. Clear and Present Danger and The Quiet American are more nuanced and complicated in grappling with espionage and US imperialism, though the former’s denouement offers a Capra-esque fantasy of resolution via Harrison Ford venting indignation at the corrupt President (also admittedly the film's best scene).
Whilst Salt was a return to more formulaic waters, Noyce was and remains a solid craftsman of mostly intelligent, better than average mainstream entertainment. The film reunites Noyce with his The Bone Collector star Angelina Jolie, then an ingenue, now a fully-fledged marquee movie star. Her character Evelyn Salt is an American intelligence agent accused of being a Russian spy by a defector (Daniel Olbrychski). She goes on the run to prove her innocence, expose the enemy within the system, and protect her husband (August Diehl, spectacular in Inglorious Basterds and A Hidden Life but not particularly memorable here), pursued by dogged agents in the form of Liev Schreiber and Chiwetel Ejiofor.
While a little bland—the film could use a metaphorical pinch of its titular mineral to add some flavour—Salt chugs along steadily, with the adroit Evelyn—originally conceived as a male character for Tom Cruise—navigating the chase with Jason Bourne-esque ingenuity and prowess. Noyce and co.’s action set pieces are well-staged if rudimentary, and the film showcases good work by cinematographer Robert Elswit and editor Stuart Baird, who like Noyce are well-versed in the making of both action thrillers (Elswit shot Curtis Hanson’s early thrillers, Baird was editor on—deep breath!—Lethal Weapon 1 and 2, Die Hard 2, Tango & Cash, The Last Boy Scout, and Demolition Man among others) and also spy thrillers (Elswit later shot two Mission: Impossible films and The Bourne Legacy, Baird edited Casino Royale and Skyfall).
In the book Backroads to Hollywood, Noyce recounts how his daughter strongly encouraged him to secure his next project as soon as possible after a screening of Sliver, before others in the industry could set their eyes on it and his stock would plummet. Subsequently, she sagely encouraged him to screen that next film, Clear and Present Danger, as far and wide as possible. Noyce’s children also contributed to him taking on The Giver (2014): the director recalls “It was a book that I was aware of from my two daughters who had read it in high school”. Elsewhere, he contends that the project “combined all of the elements that have attracted me to big budget Hollywood blockbusters. Together with ideas that intrigued me on the much smaller films I’ve made like The Quiet American and Rabbit-Proof Fence, it seemed to be a perfect combination of elements for me as a filmmaker”.
The healthy distrust of government and ruling echelon absent from Salt is certainly evident in the well-manicured dystopia of The Giver. Based on the 1993 young adult fiction by Lois Lowry, the film is set in a world where citizens and emotions are anaesthetized, vision is monochrome, and lives & livelihoods are controlled. One young man, Jonas (Brenton Thwaites, Son of a Gun), cultivates his feelings and ability to see the world in colour under the supervision of the titular Giver (Jeff Bridges), to the concern of the Chief Elder (Meryl Streep) and his concerned guardians (Katie Holmes, Alexander Skarsgard).
The
Giver was part of the dystopian young adult fiction adaptation trend of the
2010s, released the same year as The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1,
Divergent, and The Maze Runner, and like The Hunger Games and Divergent series
followed the formula of casting established heavyweights (here Bridges—who
nurtured the project for two decades—and improbably Streep; there Donald
Sutherland, Julianne Moore, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Kate Winslet, Naomi Watts et al.)
in support of rising stars and faux-stars. It’s less action-orientated and
agitative than its brethren, which makes it more morally sound but unfortunately
less dramatically satisfying. Whilst Noyce characterizes the film as a marriage
of his two directorial sensibilities, I’d counter that it lacks both the kick
of his best action thrillers and the weight of his best dramas.
Ben