Directed By Jalmari Helander
Starring – Jorma Tommila, Stephen Lang, Richard Brake
The Plot – Returning to the house where his family was brutally murdered during the war, “the man who refuses to die” (Tommila) dismantles it, loads it on a truck, and is determined to rebuild it somewhere safe in their honor. When the Red Army commander who killed his family (Lang) comes back hellbent on finishing the job, a relentless, eye-popping cross-country chase ensues, inspiring a fight to the death.
Rated R for strong bloody violence, gore and adult language
SISU: ROAD TO REVENGE – Official Trailer (HD)
POSITIVES
Back in 2023, “Sisu” enamored audiences with its exaggerated brand of brutal action and riveting devastation, surmising one of the biggest cinematic surprises of the year, and while action sequels rarely equal the feats set by a boldly daring predecessor, let alone surpass them, it is the rare example of a successor in every sense of the word, that elevates the experience by doubling down on everything that made the original installment such an enthralling eager form of cinematic escapism. Helander’s return to undertaking such an audaciously self-aware world of vitriolic violence is not only one that wholeheartedly urges audiences to suppress their disbelief in the form of these highly elaborate and gravity-defining feats of barbaric torture, but also ones enhanced remarkably by an increasingly elevated budget of 12 million dollars, which nearly doubles the original’s budget, helping to reach for the cheesiest kind of green-screen and computer-generated special effects that appraise lunacy without sacrificing the integrity of the investing conflicts, feeling like something that could easily co-exist in the Mad Max or Fast and Furious worlds, but in ways that materialize the best aspects of both of those properties. On top of this, “Road to Revenge” is a far better paced execution than its predecessor, within 84 minutes of gut-wrenching vengeance driven by a personal conflict that allows us to see an occasionally vulnerable side to this mythic legend than we’re typically used to. Once the film sets into motion the events that inspire its aforementioned conflict, it never withers from the high stakes intensity or urgency that transpires an increasing arsenal of onslaught’s against our protagonist, and for a film featuring so very little character development, dialogue, or even unraveling dimensions to its depth in storytelling, there’s a remarkability in Helander’s helming that consistently maintains my attention throughout a structure that should eventually grow tedious with its repetition, instead leaning heavily into the magic of cinema towards orchestrating some of the most spell-bindingly silly feats of possibility that you’re sure to see, this year. On the subject of that devastation, some of that inflated budget is also used to revel a bit more persistently in the carnage candy surmised from these high stakes confrontations, with stomach-churning make-up and prosthetics detail that completely transformed the familiar likeness of this imposing legend of Finish lore. Between buckets of blood, amputated limbs, and piercing lacerations, the production earns every inch of its appropriate R-rating, without anything in the way of obscuring edits to suppress the transparency of the execution. Likewise, the combination of the sound designs and psychological score from composers Juri Seppa and Tuomas Wainola conjure an unnerving conscience to the detectability of the tensely thick atmosphere that channels rhythmic hymns and vocal gibberish, in order to elicit something profoundly prophetic to the home field advantage of this dangerous man’s adaptability, all the while extending the consistency of the original compositions from the first movie with instrumental versatility emanating from wind instruments that inscribe such fresh takes to redundant tones. In fact, the music works so cohesively with the motions of our vengeful lead that it starts to blend seamlessly with his eager impulses, crafting what feels like immersive insight into the mind of a madman, with well-maintained levels of volume mixing to balance the integrity of the visuals, without overly emphasizing emotionally just what isn’t there. We also receive highly impactful performances from Jorma Tommila and Stephen Lang, whose characters each feel like the unstoppable force meeting the immovable object. Most impressively is how Tommila effortlessly conveys emotional dexterity without the help of evidential dialogue or other human characters to bounce off of, instead harvesting these unshakeable truths and suppressed traumas in the piercing oculars as blue as the deepest oceans, in order to register the permanence of pain that resides so apparently to his unrelenting anger, and beyond even his unquenching thirst for brutality, there’s unforeseen opportunity for Jorma to revel in the empathetic waters of a man who has lost so much, somehow surmising persisting strength to carry on, despite the scars from the past that he wears everywhere but his sleeve. Our protagonist’s road is made complicated by a memorable antagonist turn from Lang, who despite a complete lack of characterization to deviate from the kinds of types that plague these movies, revels in the resiliency of his own grit and undeterred nagging persistence, with Lang’s stoicism lending itself effortlessly to an unapologetically evil equal who maintains the momentum of the film’s focus in the rare moments it deviates away from Jorma’s quiet assassin.
NEGATIVES
This secondary installment to the franchise is full of limitless entertainment and twisted hilarity, but it unfortunately doesn’t concern itself with thematic or developing layers to its storytelling, similar to its predecessor, leaving so very little of substance for audiences who don’t attach to the fun factor of the violence that permeates so frequently. If it wasn’t for the magnetism in mystique of Tommila and Lang blending so synthetically in the designs of their characters, then it would feel all the more glaringly evident how little we come to learn about either one of them, especially considering we’ve now had two films along this mythic protagonist, and while the action scenes are enough to constantly maintain my vested interests, even a little bit of development outside the physicality of the conflict would go a long way towards brandishing compelling depth to their respective characterization, leaving what feels like a four page screenplay of material that doesn’t always value every single minute of its limited screentime. On top of this, the script can also feel a bit illogically lazy in dodging some nagging cliches that typically creep into a majority of these movies, particularly those moments involving Tommila or Lang presented with the opportunity to kill the other, without any kind of outside distraction to keep them from taking advantage of them. While I understand that debating logic in a Sisu film is similar to demanding gravity in a Fast and Furious film, I truly feel that the glaring contrivances of these situational conflicts nearly rob it of all of its urgency and vulnerability, such as one instance involving Jorma brandishing a loaded machinegun aimed directly at a tranquilly defeated Lang, only to walk away from him, or another involving Lang capturing Jorma without deciding to frisk him for a weapon of possible escape. It’s clumsily distracting writing at its most obviously frivolous, without any kind of meaningful effort to logically dismiss them, serving as the single biggest gaps with logical blundering against the dangerousness of its characters, even in a film that features an army tank ramping the front gate of a government compound, or a fighter jet ramping two logs conveniently fallen against a Mack truck.
OVERALL
“Sisu: Road to Revenge” doubles down on the buckets of blood brutality and self-aware leaping of logics that made its original film an exhilarating breath of fresh air for the action genre, this time with a far more personal narrative that surmises more emotional dexterity to Jalmari Helander’s gorge of Grindhouse grandeur. While the film still struggles in storytelling spurts, undermining not only the dimensional characterization, but also the killer instincts of their checkmate scenarios, the increasing budget helps to realize the fullest of extent of this voraciously violent vision, serving popcorn thrills to the cinematic experience that refuses to ever overstay its welcome, paving the way for an even better sequel that never decelerates.
My Grade: 8.4 or B+