Directed by:
Jalmari HelanderScreenplay:
Jalmari HelanderCinematography:
Kjell LagerroosCast:
Jorma Tommila, Aksel Hennie, Jack Doolan, Mimosa Willamo, Onni Tommila, Arttu Kapulainen, Tatu Sinisalo, Vincent Willestrand, Wilhelm Enckell, Elina Saarela (more)VOD (4)
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During the last desperate days of WWII, a solitary prospector 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. While there is no direct translation for the Finnish word “sisu”, this legendary ex-commando will embody what sisu means: a white-knuckled form of courage and unimaginable determination in the face of overwhelming odds. And no matter what the Nazis throw at him, the one-man death squad will go to outrageous lengths to get his gold back - even if it means killing every last Nazi in his path. (Lionsgate US)
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Reviews (7)
Ironically, the promising bubble created by the trailers bursts with the first action scene. The Tarantino-like titles, chapter divisions and a would-be spaghetti western atmosphere are unfortunately not enough to turn a boy's foolishness into a real film. I found Sisu surprisingly boring and most of all he struck me as a Finnish version of Machete, including the feeling that it shouldn’t have been more than a trailer.
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Sisu is an unhinged action flick with an abundance of exaggeration that will decidedly not bring joy to fans of realistic period depictions and historically factual information, but it might please fans of bloody B-movie guilty-pleasure entertainment grounded in westerns and one-against-all stories in the style of Rambo, John Wick and Taken, and which in a few places is reminiscent of Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds and Tommy Wirkola’s Dead Snow. Lovers of black humour, Nordic landscapes and expansive tundra – or amateur surgery – will be in their element. Conversely, it’s not for viewers who can’t stand the sight of people’s (and horses’) bodies getting blown to pieces while attempting to cross a minefield. The numerous variations on mowing down Nazi soldiers are often rather inventive (have you ever seen a protagonist kill his enemies under the surface of a lake and suck in the air escaping from their slit throats so that he doesn't have to resurface?) and the two protagonists standing on opposite sides of the barricade are almost perfect to the point of being fascinating, which makes it practically impossible to take your eyes off of them. The film starts off with a serious tone, but it loses all sense of seriousness at an accelerating rate as the absurdity of the individual scenes gradually increases. Jalmari Helander has not only proven himself to be a filmmaker with interesting ideas, but also – for the first time – a solid storyteller, screenwriter and director, in whose presentation the gritty tale of the gold prospector and fighter Aatami has its own memorable face, which is also due in part to the film’s distinctive stylisation and cast.
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The previews are clear; the author doesn't even hide the fact that he hasn't had a peek at the same things you have. In the first more serious (not to be confused with serious) half it goes much better than in the second half, which pushes the deliberate guilty pleasure envelope a bit too hard. But even then, it’s good, playful and stylish. Only that it should have been either all in the style of the first half, or in the style of the second half from the beginning. This way, it feels somewhat like they took the opening of the first Rambo and the ending of the third. It doesn’t feel like a whole in neither style nor concept. That said, I wouldn’t mind a prequel set in the Winter War with a proper budget.
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Sisu is an entertaining B-movie from inhospitable Lapland. Stylish, bloody, funny, lively and even a bit cartoonishly fantastical. It’s not exactly innovative in terms of its subject matter, but it is unpredictable and imaginative in some scenes. The presence of Aksel Hennie as a top Nazi was pleasing.
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The creators seem to have experimented with some unearthly psychedelics, because this supposed Tarantino-esque film set during World War II turned out to be absolutely insane. Fortunately, Sisu offers a brutal and visually striking spectacle from the Finnish plains, which we don’t get to witness every day. The main character doesn’t speak much (his first and last words come right at the end); instead, his actions do the talking. And those actions have a lot to say!... The action is over the top, completely ignoring any conventional modesty. Some sequences even stretch logic to the point where the poor guy might never recover :D (the scene in the river, the hanging, the ending with the airplane, etc.). Even for me, it was too much (and I’ve seen quite a lot in my relatively short career as a reviewer, I’ll be honest). But as I said, it does have a certain flair. So, leave your brain at home and head to the movie theater. For me, it’s 6.5/10.
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