Sacrifice

Romain Gavras’s Sacrifice wants so badly to roast the global elite over an open crater that it forgets to build a fire of its own. Over the past few years, the eat-the-rich satire has calcified into its own self-congratulatory subgenre, trotting out wealthy straw men on remote islands so we can all laugh at their hypocrisy before the blood starts flying. Gavras and his co-writer, the Pulitzer-nominated playwright Will Arbery, clearly know the territory is overfarmed, so they try to brute-force their way past the clichés with sheer kinetic chaos and a mythic-adjacent detour into radical zealotry.

Yet latestnetflix.com's read is that for all its volcanic bluster and star power, this 100-minute Netflix action-comedy mistakes a loud, high-concept premise for an actual point of view.

The setup practically writes its own logline. On a Greek island dominated by an active volcano, a glittering charity benefit brings together billionaires, socialites, and preening celebrities for an evening of empty speeches and conspicuous virtue-signaling. At the center of the champagne-soaked malaise is an aging movie star played by Chris Evans, a man marooned in a profound existential crisis before the night even goes sideways.

Then the doors are blown open. A fierce radical warrior (Anya Taylor-Joy) and her devoted disciples storm the gala, taking the actor and a handful of one-percenters hostage. What starts as an armed eco-terrorist abduction quickly mutates into a feverish trek across the island, driven by a self-fulfilling prophecy, the pursuit of a legendary relic, and the promise of literal sacrifice.