A Sacrifice

The movie touched on some cult recruitment practices and attempted to address the why people get sucked into groups with some slightly on the nose dialogue dressed up as academic banter.

Unfortunately I'm familiar having directly experienced a real cult and it's terrifying groupthink. The use of psychedelics is a cult trope but mostly not the case. Maybe the cult this was based on used them but that's a generally held misbeleif. It doesn't take much to suck the unguarded in. We're social animals and crave community and acceptance.

None the less it did expose some cult standards. Being made to feel special. Group acceptance. False dilemmas to instil fear and compliance. A sociopathic cult leader. Etc.

From a movie/narrative perspective the story was a little flat and one dimensional. A splash of colour should have spruced it up visually. Sub plots were thin and the twist foreshadowing tipped its hand.

Eric did a good job as did his co-stars but I had the feeling they weren't buying the dialogue here and there. Still it was watchable and there wasn't that feeling you'd just wasted two hours of your life.

I just wish it had that extra something.

Started out interesting, halfway through, it fizzles out altogether! I'm a bit disappointed. Eric Bana usually has better taste in the movies he decides to be in. I understand cults are stupid but couldn't they just pretend to be something believable? The premise of greed ruining our world and a common collective consciousness are doable and thought provoking but as soon as Eric's daughter gets taken the whole theory and their acting goes straight down the toilet. Do better guys you've got the ability, I just know it!

Ok, it says I need a few more words so maybe I should just keep talking about how stupid this is?

This movie is 96 % talking....not character development talking, not building a plotline talking, just talking. Randomly. There are many conversations that goes no where and does not enhances the story.

Motivation: The movie never establishes the motivations to make people do what they do. They make decisions to satisfy the story without letting us know why they are making that decision.

Direction/Acting...in the few scenes that do contain some level of drama, the actors overact the scene which means yelling, gesturing loudly and walking out of rooms.

Lastly...boring. The first 20 minutes did little to pique my interest and even make me want to finish the movie. I should have gone with that instinct and saves myself 90 minutes of my life.

Well I just got done watching this movie and I feel like I've seen this movie before because I have seen this movie before.

Positives for A Sacrifice (2024): The performances from Sadie Sink and Eric Bana are pretty good for the most part. I did have some investment in what was happening in the story. And that's about it for positives.

Negatives for A Sacrifice (2024): Like I said before, this is a movie and a premise that I've seen many times before and it's plays out the exact same way as those other movies. It also feels like this movie could've been directed by anyone and yet it was directed by Jordan Scott, the daughter of legendary filmmaker Ridley Scott.

Overall, A Sacrifice (2024) is as generic as these cult thriller movie can get and nothing new is brought to the table.

Stars Ben(Eric Bana of Munich) , a writer who moves to Berlin to find himself surrounded by the dark and dangerous power of cults. The divorced American psychologist studies suicide cults in Germany and, in the process, confronts a personal trauma related to his past. Ben's daughter, Mazzy (Sadie Sink of Stranger Things), begins to fall in love with a boy Martin (Jonas Dassler) who introduces her to the dark underbelly of secret recruiting groups. As their two worlds head toward a risked intersection . Ben will need to race against the clock in order to save his daughter. Meanwhile, the father falls in love for a police forensic psychologist, Nina (Sylvia Hoeks). Purify and start again !.

Jordan Scott adapts and directs the Nicholas Hogg's novel Tokyo, carrying out a passable film , but neither notable, nor extraordinary, but acceptable . The main background in which the characters are presented turns out to be a labyrinth of insecurities and fear of loneliness that leads to vulnerability to cults, a problem of growing and disturbing importance in our society, as occurs in every moment of crisis of values.

There are several interesting themes throughout the film, but they aren't fully developed. Worth mentioning are manipulation, control, extremist ideologies, and vulnerability. These, among others, are the issues that run through this intriguing film about the price we are willing to pay for the mistakes of the past. The film is unevenly paced, first surrendering to empty, aestheticist visual symbolism and then to the final, hasty transformation of suspenseful tension into fast-paced parallel action in the last half hour of the film.

Interpretations are decent enough. Eric Bana as an American social psychologist Ben Monroe who investigates a local cult connected to a disturbing event, while his daughter is passably acted by Sadie Sink who becomes embroiled with a mysterious local boy performed by Jonas Dassler.

Directed by Jordan Scott, daughter of the legendary filmmaker of Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator I and II, The Martian, she nevertheless fails to relate to her father in terms of film, due to the fact that she does not provide an effective result. Jordan Scott has previously made other films, such as: Cracks, All the Invisible Children and Shorts: The Muse, Portrait, The Initiate, among others. 'A Sacrifice' rating: 5/10. A mildly interesting film with some touches of intrigue, tension, suspense and plot twists.