PLOT: A global action star (Chris Evans), in the midst of a career crisis, is taken hostage by a group of environmental terrorists led by a young woman named Joan (Anya Taylor-Joy) while attending a climate change event.
REVIEW: Satire is a hard thing to pull off, and it feels like every year we’re getting at least one “eat the rich” example of the genre. Sometimes they work, such as in The Menu or Triangle of Sadness, but just as often they fall flat, like last year’s TIFF entry The End, and now Sacrifice. Directed by Romain Gavras, whose incendiary Athena put him on the global A-list, Sacrifice is a big swing and a miss. Gorgeously photographed, with a powerful score and impeccably cast, it feels like Sacrifice should work, but it’s pretty toothless satire and never as fun as it seems to think it is.
Chris Evans is the only one to wring any laughs out of the proceedings, indulging in a bit of self-satire as a global movie star trying to reinvent himself after starring in a hit franchise. That’s not unlike Evans himself, who’s been trying to distance himself from his iconic portrayal of Captain America. He certainly shrugs off any sense of vanity with his Mike Tyler, a pretty dopey creation who believes himself to be an environmental activist, but is really only concerned with how people perceive him and maintaining a thick head of hair. As the film goes on, he seems to fear going bald more than death.
What laughs the movie musters come from him, with Anya Taylor-Joy given a more menacing role as the naïve Joan, who leads a group of terrorists convinced a volcanic eruption is about to cause an extinction-level event. They believe the only way the world can be saved is if Mike willingly sacrifices himself to the volcano. If you’re thinking this sounds a lot like Joe vs. the Volcano, you’re not too far off.
Taylor-Joy isn’t given much to do, but her presence does lend itself to the movie’s one good set piece, where Charli XCX (seemingly playing herself) performs an elaborately choreographed cover of Cerrone’s Super Nature, climaxing in Taylor-Joy—looking model-perfect—interrupting by firing a machine gun in the air while striking a pose. She looks so sexy doing it that everyone assumes it’s part of the number, and she has to hack someone’s hand off with a machete to prove to the elites she’s for real.
That’s really the movie’s only truly effective moment, although the location shooting in Iceland by DP Matias Boucard is striking, as is the soundtrack by GENER8ION. Tonally, the movie is wildly inconsistent, with Gavras’s real-life muse Vincent Cassel acting like he’s in a legit kidnapping thriller, while supporting players like John Malkovich and Sam Richardson ham it up. It feels like no one involved quite knew what kind of movie they were making, and the film may have fared better had it been done straight and not as satire.
While technically a well-made movie, Gavras’s Sacrifice seems doomed to the same fate as last year’s The End, meaning it will largely pass unnoticed. It’s ambitious work from talented people, but it doesn’t quite land.
Sacrifice is now streaming on Netflix.
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