Director Jalmari Helander’s “Sisu” is a bat shit insane action movie in a year filled with some pretty good action entries. It’s like Indiana Jones and The Punisher were mashed together with a hint of Jason Voorhees, and out came “Sisu.” It’s a Nazi killing, dismembering, mutilating, head stabbing, revenge saga that manages to competently take its paper thin premise and produces an absolutely gore soaked homage to exploitation action films of the seventies and eighties.
During the last desperate days of WWII, a solitary prospector (Jorma Tommila) crosses paths with Nazis on a scorched-earth retreat in northern Finland. When the Nazis steal his gold, they quickly discover that they have just tangled with no ordinary miner. Desperate to hold on to his claim to fortune, the ex-soldier known as Aatami becomes a one man army, slaughtering countless Nazi soldiers behind enemy lines in an effort to re-claim his treasure once and for all.
“Sisu” really is a dynamite and wonderful action experience from beginning to end. The movie revolves around Jorma Tommila’s mostly silent, stoic protagonist Aatami, an ex-soldier haunted by his past who has obviously decided against ever seeing blood shed ever again. But like most great big screen revenge tales, the violence just comes knocking down his door. Director Helander manages to produce such a grimy, dirty, bloody action film, where Tommila’s character Aatami is put through hell and back. Watching his character do everything to get to his gold reaches new heights of insanity, as he thinks on his toes at every turn, and never spares a single Nazi solder in his wake.
Although there is a considerable suspension of disbelief required, “Sisu” never betrays the audience with an overpowered protagonist. Aatami is punished as much as anyone else, but he always finds new ways to bounce back, in the end. “Sisu” revels in upping the Nazi body count at any given chance, with Aatami dealing horrific deaths to them left and right. There are some excellent moments where he barely makes it out of a scenario by the skin of his teeth. From a sequence where he’s stuck underwater, to a tense moment where he has to evade rabid dogs, his urge to survive is just insatiable.
Halfway through there is a very good sub-plot involving a group of female prisoners being shipped by the Nazis for insidious purposes, but director Helander brings it all full circle in a sweet bit of poetic justice. “Sisu” is a bang up, explosive survival action flick; it’s an absolute gem that I’m certain will become an instant classic.
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