Sacrifice

Was there anyone really clamoring for a reuniting of Cuba Gooding Jr. and Christian Slater, especially considering their previous team-up ("Lies & Illusions") was one of the worst direct-to-DVD movies of recent years? To make matters worse, this production is not only Canadian, but it's written and directed by one of Canada's worst filmmakers (Damian Lee). To be fair, the end results are somewhat better than "Lies & Illusions". For a cheap Canadian movie, the visual look of the movie is slicker and more expensive-looking that you might think. And it's nice to see a Canadian movie actually set in Canada (though at times the movie seems reluctant to admit that fact.) But overall, the movie is very forgettable. The combination of Lee's bad direction and inadequate screenplay make a number of moments in the movie somewhat incoherent. Gooding's performance is nothing special, and Slater is unconvincing and unintentionally amusing playing a priest. The movie isn't aggressively bad, but it creeps along at a sluggish pace because there simply isn't enough story here.

Come on, Cuba and Christian! I know you've screwed up your careers enough to be now stuck in direct-to-DVD productions, but surely you could still find better scripts than this! Sure, I know you have bills to pay, but you could at least volunteer your services for a great director's independent film between making schlock like this.

This movie tackles the theme of cops against drug dealers, a theme that has been seen hundred times a year in movies, and I don't think this movie made any significant contribution to this worn out subject. The cops are always good, but have their problems, and the drug dealers are always bad guys who must be brought to death, before they ruin the whole world. We really don't care so much about the characters in the movie, it is like we already know what will happen to them, because the story line is very predictable. I've seen another better movies about it, and I think this is a very cliché movie without any reward to the viewer, a mere pastime, but there are better ways to waste your time. I recommend it only to the big fans of this threadbare genre...

Sacrifice has a pretty solid story going for it. A haunted cop befriends a priest at a local church all while dealing with his next case. The story takes off with a drug dealer who wants out and is denied that option, so he steals a statue filled with drugs and hides it in a local church. Now the dealers are after him and Cuba Gooding Jr must protect the dealers little sister.

The direction shines in parts and in other parts it seems very dull. Without going into much detail of the story, the film could have been much better with different music and more solid editing. The film is edited as if it is a TV movie.

Pros: Solid Perormances from Cuba Gooding Jr, Christian Slater, Devon Bostick, and Kim Coates.

Good Ending Shootouts and very good emotional ties between characters.

Cons: The editing, it really hurts the films. The music does not fit and is quite cheap. Some supporting players are very bad in their performances as well. The statistics in the opening and end credits are boring and take away from the story.

All in all its fairly entertaining especially in the last 20 minutes, but editing may make you cringe in spots.

well, from the first scene to the end... a waste of my time... this movie is sooooo bad. When I saw and read the box at the video store, I thought: okay I like Cuba and Christian... til I started to watch... I gave it my due attention and suffered until the end but OMG... time I will never get back...

My first impressions were: Bad lighting, bad cinematography, bad direction, and then... bad acting! This looks more like a film school project gone wrong then a feature film... It even looks like it was shot on early HD ENG cameras...

And if you are brave, start watching the behind the scenes featurette... they didn't even use a proper mic to record these (terribly done) interviews. This whole project should have been terminated from day 1.

The plot: A cop on the edge tries to protect an informant and his young sister after they turn on a dangerous drug lord.

Cuba Gooding, Jr, Christian Slater, and Kim Coates have been making direct-to-video action movies for a while now. Although none of them have reached the rock-bottom depths of Michael Madsen's career, it's still kind of depressing to see them toiling in such derivative, low budget B movies. This is the first time that I've seen any of these fine actors actually take on a project that seems more appropriate for Michael Madsen.

If anyone in the world is the proper demographic for these kinds of movies, it's me. I have a fondness of gritty, low budget exploitation, and I'm capable of lowering my standards to levels that most people find intolerable. I don't care overmuch about budgets, I'm fairly forgiving of plot holes, and I don't mind a bit of bad acting or bad special effects. However, movies like Sacrifice test even my patience. This is not the kind of movie that's going to give Christian Slater or Cuba Gooding, Jr a comeback. In fact, it's just going to reinforce their "has-been" status.

I know that most people don't like Cuba Gooding, Jr's recent output, but I thought some of them were quite underrated. Shadowboxer, for example, was a good movie. Hero Wanted was flawed, but it was certainly enjoyable enough for a direct-to-video release. Sacrifice makes Hero Wanted look like pure genius. I'm beginning to think that Cuba Gooding, Jr has simply given up, and he doesn't even care any more.

Sacrifice is for Cuba Gooding, Jr die-hards only. If you have a strong tolerance for B movies, you'll probably find it tolerable, but the only real draw are the B-list leads, who are rapidly falling down into the C-list territory.