However preposterous a plot it has, the action-packed Hollywood flick, “Salt,” can keep moviegoers seeking some thrills this summer on the edge of their seats.

But aren’t logic and plausibility key to a finely produced action thriller you ask?

Well, not really.

In this age of fast information and fast everything, who goes to summer action flicks for logic or even plausible characters?

We cough up our hard earned won for a ticket and maybe a tub full of buttered popcorn to feel the adrenaline rush of seeing crazy stunts on screen and in this case seeing Angelina Jolie kick a lot of butts and take down names.

The plot goes something like this: Jolie plays Evelyn Salt, a Russian double agent working for the CIA who may or may not be playing both sides.

A former high-ranking officer of Soviet-era Russia turns himself in to the CIA with some vital information that has to do with a lot of doomsday boogeyman rhetoric appropriate for a film of this type.

Salt is ushered into the interrogation room to see whether the guy is legitimate. It turns out he is.

Here’s the kicker: He spills the beans on Salt’s supposed true identity as a Russian super-spy trained and brainwashed to assassinate the American president.

Needless to say, Salt nearly blows up the entire CIA headquarters in a thrilling escape, taking down highly trained field agents in the process.

This all happens within the first 10 minutes of the film and the action never lets up, and builds to a truly hilarious showdown with the unexpected baddie.

Along with her previous bullet festivals like the “Tomb Raider” franchise, “Wanted,” and “Mr. & Mrs. Smith,” Jolie proves that she is just as convincing an action star as male counterparts like Will Smith. 

Angelina Jolie stars in the new Phillip Noyce thriller “Salt” playing a Russian double agent.                                                                                                                                            Sony Pictures

She’s got presence, charisma, and a fierceness that’s convincing enough for audiences to buy that she can toss around men perhaps nearly 100 pounds heavier than she is.

When she’s engaged in close quarter, hand-to-hand combat with men twice her size, you believe she can come out the victor because there is an ice-cold look of a killer in her eyes.

The other stunt actors she mops the floor with are not trained actors so there is a detachment visible in their faces that helps us more in believing she can go to town on these muscle-bound meatheads.

Her dedication to physical stunts is clearly visible on screen, too. There is a sense that she is an actress devoid of snobbery who actually has a respect for the action genre.

Although Jolie’s physical exploits throughout the film were aided by stunt double Eunice Huthart, she did do many of her own stunts, some of which include scenes of jumping from moving truck to moving truck, which were done with the aid of cables and harnesses that were later removed during post-production.

Despite the plot being thoroughly silly, her commitment in portraying a vicious field agent who takes no prisoners makes you believe that such a silly scenario is believable during its brisk hour and forty minute run time.　

One of the great ironies of the film’s production was that the choice of Jolie in the title role was decided only when Tom Cruise turned it down.

The film’s screenwriter Kurt Wimmer originally wrote the role for a man and had the film been anchored by Cruise, it would have been your standard, run of the mill action thriller.

This is because Jolie herself is an attraction in the film.

Though that may suggest her gravitas comes more from the novelty of movie-goers watching a female action star and to some extent that may be true.

This is directly the result of the decades of gender discrimination in the movie industry having just men play lead roles in action films.

The film was helmed by Phillip Noyce, a veteran of taut action thrillers, who sharpened his skills in the genre with his Tom Clancy adaptations “Patriot Games” and “Clear and present danger,” which starred Harrison Ford.

By Song Woong-ki (kws@heraldm.com)