When Self-Belief Becomes Self-Destruction

MOVIE REVIEWS
Salvation
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Genre: Dark Comedy, Psychological Thriller
Year Released: 2026
Runtime: 1h 31m
Director: Tom Nicoll
Writer: Tom Nicoll
Cast: Liam Harkins, Stephen McMillan, Kathleen McDermott, Conor McCarron
Where to Watch: shown at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival

RAVING REVIEW: It seemed like the majority of the time I spent watching SALVATION was spent wanting to shake Danny Carlton and tell him to get a normal job. The funny part is that he already has one, but Danny is convinced he’s meant for something bigger, and nothing as inconvenient as reality is going to change his mind. Liam Harkins makes that combination of confidence, desperation, and complete lack of self-awareness all too believable.

Danny wants to be a life coach. Not someday, not after he has actually figured out his own life, but right now. He’s paid for the training, set up his own space, built the website, bought the advertising, and borrowed far more money than he should have along the way. There’s just one problem… Almost nobody wants to hire him.

That could have turned SALVATION into a joke about influencers and the people who decide when they are or aren’t qualified to fix everyone else's problems. Writer/director Tom Nicoll certainly gets laughs out of that, but he doesn’t spend the movie pointing and laughing at Danny. The comedy comes from how seriously Danny takes it, even when everyone around him can see the whole thing is falling apart. There’s something to his commitment, even in failure, that makes the entire thing work.

Danny can be embarrassing, selfish, manipulative, and unbelievably frustrating, but he never feels like just a character created solely to be punished. Harkins gives this character moments when he actually seems good at talking to people, which may be the worst thing that could happen to someone already this convinced that he’s found his calling.

That becomes vitally important when Scott enters his life. Played by Stephen McMillan, Scott is younger, unhappy, and looking for some kind of direction. Danny suddenly has the thing he’s been waiting for. He’s found someone who actually listens to him. Their relationship gives SALVATION a stronger foundation than it would have if the entire story were just about watching Danny lose money and make increasingly terrible financial decisions.

Scott also creates a strange problem for Danny because helping someone and needing to feel important aren’t the same thing. At first, Danny seems genuinely excited that he might be getting through to him. The longer they spend together, however, the harder it becomes to tell whether Danny wants Scott to improve or simply needs him to keep believing Danny knows what he’s talking about.

That’s where SALVATION intentionally becomes less funny, although the humor never disappears completely. Danny keeps getting boxed into smaller and smaller corners, and every new problem requires another excuse, another promise, or another bit of creative thinking. He has the remarkable ability to treat each disaster as a temporary inconvenience rather than as evidence that the plan itself may be the problem.

The movie shows something about people like Danny. He’s invested so much money, time, and identity in becoming this version of himself that admitting failure would mean far more than shutting down a business. It would mean admitting that all the confidence, motivational talk, and sacrifices didn’t add up to anything. Instead of stopping, he keeps pushing toward the finish line.

Nicoll doesn’t need to turn Danny into some exaggerated monster to make the point. The movie is actually more effective because he feels ordinary. There’s no massive following, expensive car, or luxury lifestyle hiding behind the sales pitch. Danny is selling the dream of success while living in circumstances that constantly expose how far he is from it.

The film's framing heightens the sense of compression without drawing unnecessary attention to itself. The camera often stays close to Harkins, leaving Danny trapped inside and watching his reactions while he tries to convince everyone that things are under control.

Kathleen McDermott gets some of the most grounded moments in the film as Danny’s mother, Jackie. She doesn’t need to waste a lot of time trying to explain her relationship with him because their conversations already show someone who’s heard plenty of Danny’s plans before. There’s affection there, but also the exhaustion that comes with watching someone repeatedly create problems and then expect other people to help solve them.

Conor McCarron brings a lot less patience once Danny’s debts start becoming impossible to ignore. His involvement gives the story some of its edge, although SALVATION never becomes a completely different movie. The threat works because Danny has spent so much time pretending the consequences aren’t real that eventually someone has to make them real for him. When you throw yourself completely into something, the world around you can be the cost, fading away and becoming excuses.

The movie does lose a little something when the story leans too hard into that escalation. Danny is at his best as a character when the danger comes from watching him talk himself into another terrible decision. Once the situation becomes more threatening, some of the unpredictability disappears because we already know there’s not a chance in the world that he’s going to make the right choice.

I also want more from Scott outside of Danny. McMillan gives him enough personality to make the relationship believable. SALVATION is so locked onto Danny that Scott occasionally feels defined by whatever role he plays in Danny’s last dilemma. Considering how much of the movie’s larger point depends on vulnerable young men looking for someone to give them answers, giving Scott even a little more space of his own could have added another avenue, making the film more intriguing. Even with that, their relationship gives the movie a truly uncomfortable connection. Danny may not have the answers, but Scott needs answers badly enough that confidence can look a lot like wisdom. That’s a much more interesting way to approach this world than treating everyone who follows an influencer as stupid.

SALVATION avoids pretending that the internet invented people like Danny. Social media simply gives them a business model, an audience, a platform, and an endless supply of the terminology about winning, growth, discipline, and becoming the best version of yourself. Danny grabs onto all of it because it gives him a way to turn every failure into proof that he needs to try harder.

By the end, Harkins has taken Danny far enough that it becomes difficult to remember how harmless some of his early actions really seemed. He doesn’t change overnight, and that’s important. Every compromise makes the next one a little easier, until the guy trying to help people has become so good at explaining why using them is somehow part of the plan.

SALVATION is funny because Danny is ridiculous, but it sticks because he isn’t ridiculous enough to dismiss. There are plenty of people online promising that the right mindset can fix your finances, career, relationships, confidence, and probably your morning routine while they’re at it. Danny just happens to be one of the few we get to watch when his own sales pitch stops working on everyone except himself.

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[photo courtesy of LANE FILMS, SCREEN SCOTLAND]

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