Sisu

• Written and Directed by Jalmari Helander
• September 9, 2022 (TIFF) / January 27, 2023 (Finland)

A Finnish Army commando turned gold prospector attempts to defend himself from being robbed and murdered by a Waffen-SS platoon led by a brutal officer.

Sisu is the type of action movie that does not come along too often. It is a balls-to-the-wall action film. Violent and brutal with plenty of gore. Not an overly complex plot but one that makes the most of its premise and gets all that can be obtained without forcing a thing.

The dialogue is at a bare minimum making it accessible to just about anybody. And the set up is rather simple: a Finnish gold miner has cut himself off in the world during World War II encounters retreating Nazis who initially try to take his gold and when he fights back decide to take his life. Like any good movie these people don’t realize that they’ve bitten off more than they can chew.

Aatami Korpi (Jorma Tommila) appears to be an old goldminer but if that were the case we would not have any movie. Aatami Korpi comes at his opponents like a force of nature, but he is not of the general ‘80s action hero variety. He is the baddest of the bad but when injured those wounds carry through the story.

Obersturmführer Bruno Helldorf (Aksel Hennie) and his Waffen-SS platoon are in retreat carrying out scorched Earth orders to destroy everything they encounter. Helldorf is not after the gold because it is gold but because he knows it is their ticket to survival. He knows the war is lost and knows what’s going to happen to them once it is completely over.

Aatami is protecting what is his and Helldorf is trying to take it. Helldorf is clearly a villain, but I have a tough time calling Aatami a ‘hero’. He’s not fighting for some big cause or a set of higher ideals. He’s fighting for what is his and what’s his is gold. It’s a point of pride as well as not having this world take any more from him.

The movie starts and just never lets up. It keeps escalating while pulling out all the stops. With creative kills and just a level of brutal intelligence to keep things going. There is a style that helps various bits payoff yet nothing is terribly unbelievable. Mostly. I had a hard time buying that our protagonist could hop a ride on an airplane with a pickaxe and his two hands. Yes he is supposed to be a nearly unkillable one-man death squad but that stretches credibility though it does set things up for an epic finale.

We even get a great subplot that helps inform the main narrative. The Nazis have kidnapped a group of local women with the intention of raping them later. The main purpose of those characters is to build the legend of Aatami whom Joseph Stalin’s Red Army nicknamed Koshchei (The Immortal). We get enough to believe that he is capable of taking on these soldiers. And that goes for everybody in this movie. We don’t get detailed biographies of anybody. We know enough about why they do what they do for the moment and that is why it works. This is a brutal actioner and too much information might make it difficult to believe these people can be as cold and violent or ruthless as they are. 

Writer/director Jalmari Helander makes unusual choices for modern movies. If anything it’s much more in line with the type of film George Miller presented in the original Mad Max films than it is with something you might see you today. A basic premise with every ounce of possible story squeezed from it. A bare minimum of dialogue that is used only as needed. Nobody has extended monologues in this. Aatami-the main character-does not have a single line beyond grunts until the closing moments. Jorma Tommila is clearly talented since he gives us a complete individual.

This is largely done in real life. Real explosives and real fight scenes that are all well-choreographed. There’s some CGI in Sisu such as the airplane both on the ground and in the sky. But then again there aren’t many readily available functioning World War II era airplanes. That I can forgive.

From an amazingly simple premise Sisu gets a lot. It’s a great story that gets the adrenaline pumping and offers plenty of holy crap moments. If you’re an action fan this one will certainly satisfy.