At The Movies: Boxing drama Salvable packs enough punch, K-thriller Wall To Wall overstays its welcome

Salvable (M18)

101 minutes, opens on July 24
★★★☆☆

The story: Once a promising prizefighter, now nearing 40, Sal “The Bull” (Toby Kebbell) is a failure in a Welsh coastal town who takes up with a dangerous crowd in the hope of a better life.

Rocky was a cliche even before the 1976 movie Rocky, which makes you wonder at English music video duo Franklin & Marchetta’s choice of another beaten-down boxer story for their feature directing debut.

And yet, the British character drama Salvable is unexpectedly stirring in all its working-class bleakness. It is crafted with sincerity and humanised by Kebbell in a central performance heavy with sadness and shame, as Sal is reduced to sleeping in a trailer and battling his former wife (Elaine Cassidy) for custody of his estranged teen daughter (Kila Lord Cassidy). The latter’s approval is what he wants most.

He feels alive only when boxing with his old trainer (James Cosmos) at the local gym.

And so Sal says yes when a shady pal from his past (Shia LaBeouf), fresh out of prison, offers him some of that long-ago thrill, as well as extra cash, in the underworld of bare-knuckle bouts.

Sal’s day job caring for the elderly at a nursing home shows his innate decency. He should know better than to become entrapped as the rackets get more frighteningly violent, culminating in a bloodbath.

But he is desperate to prove his worthiness, and though there will be no redemption for him, much less any Rocky triumph, he gets you firmly in his corner in his doomed fight to do the right thing.

Hot take: The raw film-making and strong acting punch above the generic trappings of a tragic tale about second chances.

Wall To Wall (M18)

118 minutes, showing on Netflix
★★★☆☆

The story: The life and sanity of a 30-something salaryman (Kang Ha-neul) come undone from mysterious thumping noises in his apartment.

The South Korean actor from the second and third seasons of Squid Game (2024 to 2025) stars as Woo-seung in a sweaty turn that is due not only to his delinquent air-conditioning bills. Rather, the walls are closing in on the office drone of the Netflix psychological thriller Wall To Wall.

Three years earlier, he emptied his savings for a dream home in Seoul. He is drowning in debts, in the wake of a market crash, and the other occupants in his housing complex – including one upstairs played by Seo Hyun-woo – are accusing him of generating the very inter-floor disturbances that torment him.

84 Square Meters describes the standard apartment size in the capital. It doubles as South Korean writer-director Kim Tae-joon’s local title for his relatable black comedy on the realities of modern urban living: the financial strain, the social isolation, the noisy neighbours, the owner-renter dynamics and illusion of class mobility.

It is tense and claustrophobic. There are surreal scenes of paranoia, with Woo-seung as an everyman naive enough to trust Yeom Hye-ran’s “resident representative” living in the luxury penthouse.

There is an abrupt tone shift into bloody mayhem once he uncovers an overblown conspiracy and murderous capitalist greed.

The parable wants to be Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite (2019), but it is just half a good movie, which continues to extend its runtime until viewers are left feeling as trapped as the pitiable hero.

Hot take: What begins as an expressive home owner’s nightmare overstays its welcome. It is all shoddy action violence towards the end.