Directed By Jalmari Helander

Starring – Jorma Tommila, Aksel Hennie, Jack Doolan

The Plot – When an ex-soldier (Tommila) discovers gold in the Lapland wilderness and tries to take it into the city, Nazi soldiers, led by a ruthless SS officer (Hennie), make his life a living hell, forcing the mysterious man to unleash hell towards his outnumbering oppressors.

Rated R for strong bloody violence, gore and adult language

Sisu (2023) Official Red Band Trailer – Jorma Tommila, Aksel Hennie – YouTube

POSITIVES

In Helander’s most ambitious project to date, he conjures a brutally bone-chilling war thriller that is one-part Grindhouse campiness and two-parts 80’s John Rambo, to supplant a rip-roaring good time that never lags on intensity in or out of his riveting action set pieces. Because of such, he illustrates a protagonist in Aatami who not only makes John Wick look like an amateur with the kind of persistence and resilience that adds to the mystique in the design of the character, but one who despite his occasional feats of superhuman immortality doesn’t sacrifice the humanity or vulnerability in his tragic backstory that serves as all of the motivation that he needs to drive his blood-soaked trail of vengeance. Aatami is played impressively by Tommila in a breakthrough kind of performance for the actor, despite his 64 years of age that remarkably convey the physicality and grit of a man half of his senior. Without the use of dialogue to articulate the extent of his suffering, Tommila works overtime with emotive expressions that boldly emit the depths of the physical and emotional struggle from within, letting his actions do the talking for those unfortunate enough to cross paths with him. As for those aforementioned action set pieces, Helander draws comparisons to Guy Ritchie in his prime, stitching immersive sound design with complex movements of the lens that always afford us an unorthodox vantage point for the devastation, which we can feel with every devastating blow. Because the film is gleefully obliged to embrace the boldness of its rating, we’re treated to unapologetic gore and brutality that feel highly impactful without being downright exaggerated, refusing to sacrifice believability for the kind of creativity that constantly keeps you hooked throughout. Besides this, the score from Juri Seppa and Tuomas Wainola is one of my favorite of the year, cementing a distinct audible identity in rhythmic hymns and wind instruments that simply cannot be mistaken for any other film. Likewise, the spell-binding cinematography from Kjell Lagerroos captures beauty in the devastating circumstance of the Finnish countryside, with intoxicating wide angles of mesmerizing scenery, as well as unique framing schemes for shadow-play in the depiction of Aatami that visually capture the mystique of his movements. Lastly, the chapter structure with slapped across on-screen text is a nice touch to 70’s Grindhouse features and even revenge westerns of the golden ages of cinema, in this case surmizing meaningful merit to each of the six chapters that initially inscribe a hint of what’s to come, but never in ways in which the text immediately abruptly spoils the extent of the scenes they accompany.

NEGATIVES

On the side of dwindling returns, the story rarely expands beyond the plot, with one-note characterization and stunted conflict that pretty much inscribe that what you see within the opening five minutes of the narrative is exactly what you’re going to get. For some people this won’t be a problem, as simplicity is sometimes the best way of coinciding with one of these good-time films, but for my money I could’ve used a further fleshing out of Aatami, and even a whole chapter dedicated to his torturous past, which only would’ve further enhanced our empathy for the character, as well as the personal nature of his vengeance. This is also the case for the Nazi antagonists, who carry just about every single trait of cinematic Nazi’s that you’ve ever seen in a movie, or even the female prisoners, whom I can’t even remember a single name of. While no one is seeing this movie for either of these sides, it could help enhance an element of versatility to their rendering, especially since 85 minutes feels like the bare minimum in a movie with so many compelling elements to its plot and corresponding structure. Likewise, while the design of Aatami intrigued me with his own version of limitless pain that he takes from these dangerous adversaries, there were a few feats that he did primarily during the second act that constantly broke my investment to what was otherwise a mostly believable engagement to that point. I’m not looking for the strongest kind of logic here, but when a character is engulfed in flames without a mask, and comes out of it without a single burn to their skin, I have to call bullshit, and I unfortunately did this a few times throughout sequences that were utterly ridiculous. Finally, while much of the action sequences permeated a gleeful element of brutality to their physicality, the eccentric nature of the editing occasionally got the best of detections that between scenes weren’t as coherent in their depiction as I would’ve preferred. I don’t always require things visually laid out for me with slow motion, but there were wounds that happened to characters occasionally that I didn’t properly register until the movie downright focused on them as a device, and if I had one suggestion to the editing department, it would be more long takes in the confines of the conflicts that not only would’ve bred believability to their psychologies, but also afforded us more time to appreciate what wasn’t always evident between nauseating energy of cut indulgence.

OVERALL
“Sisu” could easily be classified as the “Rambo” of our time, or the third in a 70’s style Grindhouse triple feature at any drive-in, but it eventually finds a soul of its own in the confines of technical merits or a mystiquely maniacal protagonist serving as a Nazi’s worst nightmare. The surface level script doesn’t always evolve the story naturally beyond its plot, nor supplant meaning to secondary characters, but it does narrate a grisly spectacle in episodic form that captivates its audience by air, land and sea, with material that earns every bit of its coveted R-rating.

My Grade: 7/10 or C+