Production companies Columbia Pictures Di Bonaventura Pictures Wintergreen Productions Rainmaker Digital Effects
Directed by Phillip Noyce
Written by Kurt Wimmer
Produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura Sunil Perkash
Edited by Stuart Baird John Gilroy
Music by James Newton Howard
Synopsis Evelyn Salt is in prison in North Korea, suspected of being a U.S. spy. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) arranges a prisoner exchange to stifle the publicity her boyfriend, arachnologist Mike Krause, is bringing to her case. Mike proposes marriage despite her admission that she is a CIA operative. Two years later, Salt interrogates Russian defector Oleg Vasilyevich Orlov, with CIA colleague Ted Winter and CIA counterintelligence officer Darryl Peabody observing. Orlov claims that on "Day X", Russian sleeper agents known as "KAs" will destroy the United States of America, and that Agent "KA-12" will assassinate Russian President Boris Matveyev at the impending funeral of the American Vice President. He says KA-12's name is Evelyn Salt. Peabody orders Salt be detained, while Orlov kills two agents and escapes. Salt also escapes and tries to phone her husband Mike while traveling to her home and evading the chasing CIA and police. Mike has been kidnapped. Salt gathers supplies including weapons and a spider in a jar. Salt shoots Matveyev at the Vice President's funeral and surrenders to Peabody instead of taking the opportunity to kill him. Matveyev is pronounced dead. Salt escapes to a barge where Orlov is waiting with other sleeper agents. In flashback Salt recalls her childhood in the Soviet Union, being trained with other children and assuming the identity of the real Evelyn Salt, an American girl who died with her parents in a car crash in the Soviet Union. Orlov tests Salt by reuniting her with Mike only to immediately have him killed in front of her. Her lack of reaction convinces Orlov and he says she and another KA will assassinate the American president Howard Lewis. Salt kills Orlov and the other agents and leaves to meet with the KA Shnaider in his cover as a Czech NATO liaison officer. Disguised as Shnaider's male attache she accompanies him into the White House, where Shnaider launches a suicide attack driving the President into a secure underground bunker, accompanied by Winter and other agents. Salt manages to enter the outer bunker before it is sealed. Russia mobilizes its nuclear arsenal in response to President Matveyev's assassination. U.S. President Lewis orders preparations for retaliation. Upon realizing Salt has entered the outer bunker, Winter kills everyone in the inner bunker except the President, revealing himself to be KA Nikolai Tarkovsky. Incapacitating the President, Tarkovsky begins targeting missiles at Mecca and Tehran to incite a billion Muslims against the United States. Salt professes admiration and nearly persuades him to let her join him in the inner bunker, when a broadcast reports that President Matveyev is alive, his vital signs having been merely suppressed by spider venom. Tarkovsky realises Salt is not on his side, and reveals that she is to be the patsy for the nuclear attacks. Salt breaks into the bunker and, after a fight, aborts the missile launch. Reinforcements arrive and Salt is arrested as Tarkovsky identifies himself as CIA. As Salt is being led out in chains, Tarkovsky grabs a pair of scissors. As Salt is led past him she throws her chain around his neck and jumps over the railing, killing him. Alone with Peabody in a helicopter, Salt explains her actions to him, promising to hunt down the remaining KA agents if freed, pointing out that Matveyev is alive and that she hadn't shot Peabody earlier. Salt's fingerprints are found on the barge, convincing Peabody who allows her to jump from the helicopter into the Potomac River.
