When an ex-soldier who discovers gold in the Lapland wilderness tries to take the loot into the city, Nazi soldiers led by a brutal SS officer battle him. Sisu is an amalgamation of John Wick-esque mythology, a gritty World War II setting, and the pacing of an old western film with the style of an unmade Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino Grindhouse movie. Jorma Tommila stars as Aatami, who is a former soldier turned solitary miner living out in the wilderness with his both dog and horse. I firmly believe that this man is the Finnish John Wick. A man of very few words, a boogeyman-like backstory surrounding him, and a knack for scaring the bad guys shitless, before he brutally kills them of course. Tommila had the tough task of carrying the film with his facial expressions and physical performance, as he utters less than 5 lines in total throughout the 90 minute duration. He does such a fantastic job at making the viewer relate to his position as a man who literally struck gold and is seeking to get away from the endless violence and despair of WWII. There are situations where Tommila can give the Nazi antagonists the slightest glaring look and no words are even needed to convey that this guy means business. On the topic of the Nazis, their battalion is led by the relentless SS Obersturmführer played by Aksel Hennie who is highly convincing and full of menace. Jack Doolan plays Obersturmführer’s right hand man and the chemistry the two of them have was surprisingly strong for one note Nazi villains. Without going into too much detail, there are brilliant and hilarious ways that Obersturmführer and Wolf direct their henchmen to carry out certain deadly tasks for them, that we as the viewer just know they are destined to fail miserably. Finnish director Jalmari Helander’s inventive execution of a simple story paired with Kjell Lagerroos’s gorgeous cinematography make the relatively slow burn pacing easy to get through. The exciting set pieces elevate the straightforward narrative and some of the kills feel like they are torn straight out of a graphic novel, with an emphasis on the graphic part. One of my issues with the film is that while the action is mostly a visceral treat, some of the hand to hand combat fights suffer from the camera being far too close up, making it a bit hard to tell what’s going on at times. Also, despite the third act being absolutely riveting, there’s a point in the climax in which something happens that feels so ridiculous, and this instance sort of betrays a bit of the gritty realism the film was going for in its first two thirds. Overall, despite those issues I had, Sisu is a badass, gorgeously photographed, oftentimes humorous, hauntingly scored, and gory WWII action flick done in the vein of an old fashioned western, powered by a physically demanding performance from Jorma Tommila who can dispatch Nazis in the most creative and playful ways possible.
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