Movie Review: "Sisu: Road to Revenge" Is Another Savage, Stylish, and Unstoppable Outing That Packs A Blood-Soaked Punch
9/12 ForReel Score | 3.5/5 Stars
As far as the “one man army” subgenre goes, I doubt you'll find a set of movies more creative than the Sisu films. Titled after an undefinable Finnish word insinuating resolve in the face of adversity, Sisu was a bite-sized bloodbath that only ran about 91 minutes (including credits) - a glorious hour and a half filled to the brim with Looney Tunes-adjacent kills against swaths of Nazis, orchestrated by an invincible mute Finnish man named Aatami (Jorma Tommila). After butchering Nazis by the truckload in the first Sisu, Aatami is back and angrier than ever in Sisu: Road to Revenge, wreaking vengeful havoc on the Soviets that killed his family and took his land in the Winter War. Jumping from one shade of Eurofascist red to another, Sisu: Road to Revenge is a worthwhile sequel for a film that otherwise didn’t need one.
Searching for peace alongside his adorable Bedlington Terrier (who is Tommila’s dog in real life), Aatami is repeatedly accosted by military men in a brilliantly gory game of “fuck around and find out”. The first Sisu was a simple story about Aatami mining for gold before the Nazis came a-knockin’, but there’s a more personal setup to Road to Revenge, as he tries to rebuild his house from the ground up within Finland’s new borders. With more of a political charge than your average action flick, Sisu was set against the backdrop of the Lapland War between Finland and Nazi Germany. Subsequently, Road to Revenge takes place during the fallout of World War II and the rise of the Soviet Union. It’s not exactly The Death of Stalin in terms of its politics, but simply being anti-fascist is enough to spark controversy these days.
Following George Miller’s footsteps in the Mad Max franchise, the Sisu films hinge on escalating stakes and gonzo action. Starting with mundane tasks such as gold mining or house building, it’s hard to believe that the first and last five minutes of either Sisu belong to the same movie. Even if Sisu: Road to Revenge doesn’t reach the same “how the hell will he get out of this?” heights as the first one, it’s not really a downgrade, either. Nowhere in Road to Revenge is there a moment as batshit insane as when Aatami hijacks an airplane with a pickaxe during takeoff in the first Sisu, but Road to Revenge still has inventively bonkers action that had my theater going nuts. The blood spills by the gallon, and people explode in beautiful crimson plumes of meat and debris; just how I like it.
Nearing seventy years old, Jorma Tommila wordlessly kicks ass and takes names in one hell of a physical performance that serves as both Charlie Chaplin’s Tramp and Keanu Reeves’ John Wick in equal measure. Aside from being one of the most jacked old guys I’ve seen in my life, Tommila embodies this role with an equal amount of pathos, with his wordless gazes being some of the most striking moments in either film. On top of being both muscular and forlorn, the key to what makes Aatami work is writer-director Jalmari Helander’s cartoonishly sardonic sense of humor. It’s inherently fun to watch fascists get their just desserts, but it’s even better when Aatami kills them in the funniest ways possible. It’s a beautiful cross between Inglourious Basterds and Tom and Jerry, and never fails to be an utter delight.
Tommila’s screen presence is one to be cherished, but it’s a bonus to have both Stephen Lang and Richard Brake counterbalance him in Road to Revenge. It’s a glorious display of old men fistfighting (Brake is the youngest at sixty), involving Tommila and the seventy-three-year-old Lang as Igor Draganov, the man personally responsible for killing Aatami’s family. Whether he’s a nine-foot-tall blue alien in Avatar or a blind Michael Myers riff in Don’t Breathe, it’s safe to say that Lang is one of our most dependable heavies in the business right now. Richard Brake is less present than I hoped he would be, but that doesn’t mean his trademark menace isn’t welcomed, either. His presence establishes a bureaucratic food chain that Dragonov is at the bottom of, as his reputation hinges on the mission to kill Aatami. Between this and the upcoming Avatar: Fire and Ash, Stephen Lang is having one hell of a year.
Please forgive me when I say that I wasn’t expecting much from Sisu: Road to Revenge, but I am now a changed man who believes that there should be as many Sisu-s as there are Rambo-s, which is pretty funny considering that Helander is set to remake Rambo with Noah Centineo in the leading role. Helander claims that Road to Revenge is a good enough conclusion that doesn’t necessarily need a sequel, but one could say the same thing of the first Sisu, too. Maybe Sony will release a double-feature box set of Sisu and Road to Revenge later down the line, an outcome I would be more than fine with if it means Helander can get the international recognition he deserves. It may be the lesser of the two, but Sisu: Road to Revenge is a short, sweet, delectably violent morsel of action cinema that kept this gorehound well-fed and entertained.