Rebellion against the elite class has been the heart of Roman Gavrais’ films, including the incendiary 2022 thriller, Athena. Gavrais returned to a similar theme with Sacrifice, a star-studded satire starring Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Evans, Salma Hayek, Vincent Cassel, Sam Richardson, John Malkovich, Jade Croot, and Charli XCX. The film debuted last year at TIFF, which is where I caught it, and Netflix has finally released a trailer ahead of its eventual release.
Evans stars as a dopey celebrity trying to make a career comeback by attending a gala for the elite, held inside a mountain in Greece. However, he and a handful of other rich and famous people are abducted by a radical eco-terrorists intent on sacrificing them in order to save humanity from a climate change disaster.
It’s a funny premise with loads of opportunity to take shots at clueless, virtue-signaling celebs, pompous billionaires, and misguided activists. However, I found the film to be more irritating than anything else, largely because it doesn’t go far enough or attempt a position that’s even remotely challenging. All of the jokes are easy and obvious.
SYNOPSIS: The attendees at an environmental conference/benefit in Greece seem more like the guests at an A-list Hollywood party than a serious intellectual summit. There’s actor Mike Tyler (Evans), the oblivious star of numerous successful action movies, who’s now undergoing an existential crisis. He hopes to deliver a rousing speech demanding a real response to climate change, and to reset his brand in the process. Braken (Cassel), a fusion of your least favorite billionaires, is present to muster support for a highly questionable deep-sea mining effort targeting essential minerals. Complicating their efforts is Joan (Taylor-Joy), the leader of a doomsday eco-cult. She and her acolytes are convinced the only way to prevent the catastrophic, world-ending eruption of the huge volcano burbling off the coast is to offer up suitably famous sacrifices.
Netflix has yet to give Sacrifice a firm release date, but it’s expected to arrive later this year.
