Salvable review – Shia LaBeouf unexpectedly on hand for gritty British boxing drama with melancholy feel

The Guardian

08-07-2025

Blue-collar chancer gets drawn into criminal underworld; it must be one of the most well-worn plots in cinema, and if debut directors Bjorn Franklin and Johnny Marchetta don't exactly make it fresh in this character study, then they undeniably lend it a heartfelt vividness. That's thanks in no small part to lead actor Toby Kebbell, who as ageing boxer and care-home worker Sal holds our attention with a loquacious naivety, despite having been around the block many times. Yakking his way in and out of various marital, family and felonious situations, Sal is a man fundamentally in negotiation with himself.
Living in a trailer, Sal is first and foremost trying to salvage his relationship with his 14-year-old daughter Molly (Kíla Lord Cassidy), irritating his ex-wife Elaine (Elaine Cassidy) in the process. Despite his thickening waist, he's still a force in the boxing ring; checking on his form one day is his childhood buddy and local gang leader Vince (Shia LaBeouf, with thick Irish brogue and a bleached top that causes one character to complain: 'It's hard to hear myself think over that fucking hairstyle.') Vince asks Sal to referee the bare-knuckle boxing bouts he's got going, but his Irish Traveller clientele won't accept this local legend remaining a bystander.
Scripted by Franklin, there's a bagginess to Salvable as it traipses from Sal's care work, his fumbling attempts to reconcile with Molly, and the criminal fringe; it hovers between ill-disciplined and authentic. But the performances tip it in favour of the latter: not just Kebbell's, but also LaBeouf's brisk grittiness, recalling his breakthrough role in New York street drama A Guide to Recognising Your Saints from 2006. The directors, meanwhile, are adept at using colour to emotionally tint Sal's trip to nowhere: the forlorn shores and slate roofs of the unnamed Welsh coastal town are awash in cobalt blue, and a scene in which he bids farewell to one of his elderly patients is red-raw. Even if the skimpy detailing of Sal and Vince's past leaves the finale verging on sentimentality, rather than fully exposing the self-inflicted wound it's supposed to be, Salvable's overall melancholic undertow is hard to resist.
Salvable is available on digital platforms from 14 July.