Columbia PicturesPhysical media may be making a much-deserved comeback, but there’s one aspect of the pre-streaming boom that these new film collections just aren’t able to replicate. There’s a selective air towards the practice of building a film library now, but how many of us are filling our shelves with films that are just... okay? Before Netflix and its competitors took over the world, most family dens were filled with DVDs and Blu-Rays of average to abysmal action flicks, often grabbed from Walmart’s $5 bin or rented from Blockbuster and never returned.Salt was one such film in my house, and against all odds, it became the go-to on movie nights when no one could agree on what to watch. Later, it grew into a tentative favorite, even if the spy thriller is every bit a relic of the perpetually paranoid Cold War era. It’d be right at home alongside The Sum of All Fears or the James Bond films of the early 2000s, probably because its script had been in development since 2002. It briefly had legs as a star vehicle for Tom Cruise, but when he rejected the film to star in Knight and Day (remember that?), it was retooled as the potential first installment of an Angelina Jolie spy franchise.It’s Jolie who elevates the twisty but otherwise simple premise of Salt, which hit theaters 15 years ago today. She’d established herself as a bankable action star years before she was offered the script, but her sex appeal always defined her most notable work. Salt cleverly split the difference between the Jolie of Tomb Raider and Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and the slightly more serious actress she’d become in the second phase of her career. It underplayed her sexuality in a way that felt downright radical in 2010: you can see the seeds of a changing industry in her determination to become a serious action star. Salt essentially walked so that Atomic Blonde, Black Widow, and The Woman King could run; if only its story had been as interested in reinventing the wheel.Directed by Phillip Noyce and initially penned by Equilibrium scribe Kurt Wimmer, Salt buries a straightforward spy thriller under layers of West-versus-East paranoia. Jolie is Evelyn Salt, a quietly capable CIA operative working out of D.C. She’s defined by two things: her dedication to her cover (established during a brief but intense flashback of enduring torture in North Korea) and her love for her civilian husband Mike (August Diehl). Both come under fire when the CIA picks up a cryptic Russian defector, Orlov (Daniel Olbrychski). He spins a fantastical story about Russian sleeper agents during his interrogation with Salt, an idea that’s outdated even in the film’s world. However silly it seems, though, we’re forced to buy into it when Orlov names Salt as Chenkov, an agent sent by radicals to assassinate the Russian President and kickstart nuclear war.In presenting Jolie as quietly capable, Salt is an answer to male-led franchises like Bond and Bourne. | Columbia PicturesThe beauty of Salt lies in its ambiguity. It withholds the truth even into its final act, and it’s not afraid to leave us doubting Salt’s true intentions. If she’s not a Russian spy hellbent on destroying the world, why does she launch such a desperate escape from the Agency’s offices? Why does she disguise herself and head to New York, where Russia’s president is scheduled to appear next? It’s a brilliant game that only comes into focus in bits and pieces. Salt’s relationship with her husband, largely fleshed out through flashbacks, does a lot of heavy lifting in conveying her humanity, but it’s effective nonetheless. This is some of Jolie’s most subtle, compelling work. Though Salt is trained not to reveal any emotion, resulting in some unflappable, balletic, and ruthless action sequences, Jolie allows some much-needed pathos to slip through. She’s occasionally hard to trust, but you can’t help but root for her, even when her stunts verge on supernatural. At times, the film runs into the same issues as something like The Accountant. Not only is its lead comically hypercapable, but Salt has more set-up and backstory than it knows what to do with. But Jolie holds an increasingly ridiculous story together by sheer force of will, while Noyce delivers the kind of solid, straightforward action that feels almost quaint today.While Salt didn’t inspire a franchise, it’s still a solid addition to the thriller genre. | Columbia PicturesSalt didn’t sire a franchise for Jolie, but the film, despite its story’s silliness, generated a good box office turnout and scored favorable reviews. Ultimately, though, its legacy lives on in the films that followed. Salt was one of a handful of movies that seemed to prove the viability of a female action star who wasn’t there to be ogled at. It’s a shame that it couldn’t spin off into something as big as Bourne or Bond, but it still makes for an entertaining watch today.Salt is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.