SALVABLE (2025)

Genre: Drama/Crime
Director: Bjorn Franklin, Johnny Marchetta
Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Toby Kebbell, James Cosmo, Kíla Lord Cassidy, Michael Socha, Elaine Cassidy, Aiysha Hart, Nell Hudson, Barry Ward
Runtime: 1 hr 41 mins
Rating: M18 (Coarse Language)
Released By: Shaw Organisation
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 24 July 2025

Synopsis: Shia LaBeouf and Toby Kebbell star in an emotional, action-packed film about a prize fighter's battles both inside and outside the ring. When a battered boxer past his prime finds his dreams and his relationships on the ropes, he falls back in with a dangerous crowd and has to take the biggest swing of his life to reclaim his hope and his family.

Movie Review:

Salvable is less an underdog sports tale and more a gritty human drama rooted in hardship, regret and hope. Set in a sleepy English town, the film stars Toby Kebbell (Ben-Hur, Kong: Skull Island) and Shia LaBeouf who surprises with an Irish accent nearly as thick as his beard.

Kebbell plays Sal, an aging boxer living in a trailer, scraping by with a job at a nursing home. His biggest concern is his 14-year-old daughter Molly (Kíla Lord Cassidy) who now lives with her mother and stepfather. Though past his prime, Sal still clings to dreams of a boxing comeback, saving every penny in hopes of buying a proper home and more importantly, rebuilding his fractured relationship with Molly.

Enter Vince (LaBeouf), Sal’s best friend who has just been released from prison. Vince’s return quickly complicates things, drawing Sal into a series of underground boxing matches and shady dealings. As expected, their journey doesn’t head toward a triumphant finale but rather a spiral into darker, more tragic territory.

Written and directed by Bjorn Franklin and Johnny Marchetta, Salvable marks the duo’s first feature-length film. On a positive note, they’ve created a believable, fully fleshed-out character in Sal—a man whose boxing dreams slipped away in his youth but whose passion still burns under the watchful eye of his aging coach and mentor Welly (James Cosmo). Sal is a man stuck in a rut, clinging to one last thread of hope: reconnection with his rebellious daughter.

However, Salvable doesn’t entirely avoid genre pitfalls. The narrative sags when it veers into cliché, particularly with Vince’s subplot, which culminates in a clumsily executed crime-heist finale. The promised climactic boxing match never materializes, leaving the film’s ending feeling more bleak than bittersweet, a missed opportunity to bring catharsis to Sal’s journey.

Despite the script’s shortcomings, Kebbell and LaBeouf deliver emotionally grounded performances. Kebbell shines in a restrained, quietly powerful portrayal of a man with a good heart, constantly caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. LaBeouf, even in a supporting role, commits fully and convincingly, his screen presence never falters, regardless of his character’s moral ambiguity.

At its core, Salvable is a story about resilience and the tragic cost of misplaced hope. It asks a difficult question: when life becomes unbearably bleak, do we keep fighting or finally surrender? There’s no easy answer and the film doesn’t pretend there is. Sometimes, we’re left to figure it out on our own, hoping someone might steer us in the right direction unlike poor Sal.

Movie Rating:

(A slow-burn drama about life choices)

Review by Linus Tee