Sisu: Road To Revenge (15)

During the Second World War, Finland reluctantly cedes territory to the invading Red Army, displacing around 400,000 Finns. Former army commando Aatami Korpi is among the affected. He returns to his family plot to painstakingly deconstruct his timber-framed home and relocate the wooden beams on the back of a truck across the new border separating the Soviet Union and Finland. Alas, Soviet brute Igor Draganov is released from a Siberian prison in exchange for killing Aatami.

LondonNet Film Review

Sisu: Road To Revenge (15) Film Review from LondonNet

In 2023, Finnish writer-director Jalmari Helander embraced gratuitous gore in his adrenaline-pumping wartime action adventure Sisu, pitting a retired commando (Jorma Tommila) and his beloved Bedlington Terrier against the might of the Nazi war machine. Helander returns to the director’s chair for a gleefully overblown sequel, which conceives ghoulish new ways to decapitate, dismember and disembowel enemy soldiers who dare to cross the grizzled hero’s path as he honours the memory of murdered loved ones…

During the Second World War, Finland reluctantly cedes territory to the invading Red Army, displacing around 400,000 Finns from the Karelian Isthmus and surrounding areas, most of whom will never see their homes again. Former Finnish Army commando Aatami Korpi (Tommila) is among the affected and he returns to his family plot to painstakingly deconstruct his timber-framed home and relocate the carefully numbered wooden beams on the back of a truck across the new border separating the Soviet Union and Finland.

Alas, the legend of the “the man who refuses to die” remains a thorn in the side of the Soviet army and a nameless KGB officer (Richard Brake) agrees to liberate high-ranking brute Igor Draganov (Stephen Lang) from a Siberian prison in exchange for killing Aatami. Draganov created the myth by slaughtering Aatami’s wife and two children and cutting them into small pieces with a shovel to feed to the wartime homeless. The sadistic Soviet must now accept responsibility for proving that the eponymous gold prospector is flesh, blood and breakable bones after all.

Bookmarked into seven blood-soaked chapters, Sisu: Road To Revenge is a whoop-inducing extension of the first film, which unfolds predominantly on four wheels as Aatami heads 120km west in search of a new place to call home. Helander draws inspiration from the Mad Max films to unleash automotive carnage on a gloriously grand scale (the third chapter is entitled Motor Mayhem for good reason) including logic-defying audacity with the payload of timber to escape airborne attacks and rival that preposterous yet exhilarating freeway bus jump in Speed. The splatter quotient is high as Soviet soldiers are squished under the tyres of Aatami’s truck or suffer fatal wounds to heads and fleshy extremities in nauseating close-up.

Tommila barely utters an intelligible word for 89 minutes but he communicates every eruption of incandescent rage with furrow-browed fervour while Lang’s merciless antagonist spews choice one-liners as best-laid plans are thwarted by Aatami’s unwavering resolve and outlandish ingenuity. Helander conceives a suitably grandiose final showdown – on considerably more than four wheels – that turns thumbscrews on the lead character until the squeamish and easily offended will have no choice but to look away. It’s a breathlessly choreographed blast.

– Kim Hu