Bjorn Franklin, drama, Elaine Cassidy, James Cosmo, Jermaine Liburd, Johnny Marchetta, Kila Lord Cassidy, movies, reviews, Salvable, Shia LaBeouf, Toby Kebbell
May 11, 2025
by Carla Hay
Directed by Bjorn Franklin and Johnny Marchetta
Culture Representation: Taking place in 2003, in Ireland, the dramatic film “Salvable” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few black people) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A financially broke boxer, who’s training for an important fight match, gets into a custody battle with his estranged wife around the same time that he reconnects with his best friend, who has recently gotten out of prison.
Culture Audience: “Salvable” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and don’t mind watching a predictable and dull drama.
“Salvable” is the movie’s title but it’s not how to describe this dreary and boring drama, which sinks into a pit of aimlessness and a weak ending. Toby Kebbell’s solid performance as a down-and-out boxer is trapped in botched filmmaking. This isn’t the worst movie you could ever see, but it’s a pointless movie that’s an inferior rehash that borrows heavily from movies that have had similar plot points.
Directed by Bjorn Franklin and Johnny Marchetta and written by Franklin, “Salvable” has the look and pace of a movie that was made with an unfinished screenplay, and the cast members were told to do a lot of improvising. A director statement from the “Salvable” production notes seems to confirm that this is how the movie was filmed. Here’s a quote from a sentence in the joint director statement: “From day one, we told our cast this wasn’t about performance, it was about truth.”
Well, the truth is this movie just isn’t very good. It’s not so terrible that you will feel like it’s an assault on your intelligence. It’s mostly a disappointing film with many missed opportunities to be better than what it is.
“Salvable” takes place in an unnamed city in Ireland over a few weeks in 2003. Sal (played by Kebbell) is an aging boxer who is training for what could be his last big fight match. His trainer Welly (played by James Cosmo) is a (boxing movie cliché) grizzled elderly man who has a “tough love” approach to training. Sal has a day job working as an aide in a nursing home, where he has a knack for interacting well with the residents, but he’s not very good at getting along with his co-workers.
Throughout the training process, Welly seems very anxious that Sal might now show up for this fight match. Welly mentions this concern enough times that you just know that something will happen in the movie that could prevent Sal from being at this match. “Salvable” is very clumsy and not subtle at all when it comes to foreshadowing what will happen.
Meanwhile, Sal’s personal life is in shambles. He’s separated from his wife Elaine (played by Elaine Cassidy), who is living with Oliver (played by Jermaine Liburd), her amiable boyfriend. Elaine is angry and resentful toward Sal because he’s been a deadbeat dad to their 14-year-old daughter Molly (played by Kíla Lord Cassidy, Elaine Cassidy’s real-life daughter), who mistrusts Sal because of all the times that he has disappointed Molly. Almost half of the movie consists of Sal trying to make up for lost time and attempting to mend his fractured relationship with Molly.
Sal’s best friend Vince (played by Shia LaBeouf) has recently gotten out of prison and starts lurking at the gym where Sal is training. It’s obvious that unemployed Vince is probably going to start committing crimes again. Sal didn’t visit Vince when he was in prison, which is the movie’s way of telling viewers that Sal wanted to distance himself from Vince. But now that Vince is back in Sal’s life, you know exactly where this movie is headed once Elaine initiates a custody battle that Sal can’t afford.
Sal is mopey and keeps a lot of his feelings to himself, so viewers won’t get to know him very well outside of his attempts to be a better father to Molly, although Kebbell makes good efforts in his non-verbal acting. LaBeouf (who is American in real life) does a passable Irish accent, but the Vince character is hollow and trite. The other cast members are serviceable in their roles, with Lord Cassidy faring the best at making her character seem like a fully formed human being instead of having a two-dimensional personality.
“Salvable” had the potential to be more suspenseful and emotionally authentic, but the movie squanders those chances with scenes that are just meandering vignettes from Sal’s life. If you’re expecting “Salvable” to be a thrilling boxing movie, forget it. The movie fails in that area too. Perhaps the best use of your time in watching “Salvable” is if you have insomnia and you need help going to sleep.
Lionsgate released “Salvable” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on May 2, 2025.