‘Sacrifice’ Review: This Starry Satire Starts Strong But Succumbs To Stuffiness

Premiering at TIFF this year, the film includes a bolstered stable of big movie stars — Vincent Cassel plays the Elon Musk/Billionaire Bad Guy stand in, Anya Taylor-Joy leads an eco-obsessed pseudo-terrorist group on a mission to fulfill a prophecy, and John Malkovich, Sam Richardson, Charli xcx, Ambika Mod, Salma Hayek Pinault all make an appearance or two to varying degrees. All are in attendance at the gala, where Mike Tyler (Evans) (incorrectly) assumes that people are vibing with his most recent social media comeback efforts. In a pretty stellar first 30 minutes, Evans mixes his Materialists drama with his Captain America presence and comedic timing to fit right into this world of capitalistic conundrum.

Enter Joan (Taylor-Joy) along with her crew of machine-gun-yielding followers. They are there to find three people — a king, a hero, and a true love — to abduct and bring back to their forest habitation and toss into a volcano and fulfill their mythical mantra. Gavras, along with his first-time co-writer of the film, Will Arbery, whip up an energy that is both infectious and thrilling to set off the transpiring of the contradictory events. But with that energy comes the crash, something the movie cannot seem to escape as it trods further away from satire territory and into a far more shaky attempt at the importance of fabled fate.

Romain Gavras’ ‘Sacrifice’ Is a Tale of Two Halves

Sacrifice echoes the struggles of the very world it presents, where two distinct ways to interact, process, and perceive the impending doom of the world seemingly exist. With one group dedicating money and ideas, and most importantly, intentions, and the other taking action first, the dichotomy of the social satire that is created is interesting in theory, but fails to coalesce into a happy unison, producing a movie that feels born of two halves. But a hilarious, witty, and genuinely entertaining first half, melded with a second half fully focused on mystical themes of nature, earth, and destiny, does not a good movie make.

It’s ironic that the film itself revolves around the action of throwing people into a volcano — something the script and momentum of the movie seem to partake in as well. Perhaps that’s the very Östlund-ness at play in a world divided between superficial power and epic destinies, long foretold by Mother Nature herself. Even if that is the case, it’s not quite enough to warrant how Sacrifice‘s ambitious intentions feel as though they fail to consume the core idea of waking up to your true nature.

Sacrifice premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, but currently has no distributor or release date. 

'Sacrifice' Review | TIFF 2025

3.5/5 Total Score

The Good

• Chris Evans is both charming and determined, mixing the best of what he has to offer.
• If you enjoy the eco-satire sub-genre, you'll be thoroughly interested in where the story goes.

The Bad

• The movie feels like two different projects put together, both in production and thematic resonance.
• The satirical nature become weary quite quickly.