Sisu: Film Review
I thought Sisu was going to be a full-throttle revenge action movie but it drags a lot and I felt very underwhelmed.
Set in Finnish Lapland near the end of World War II, the film follows a former commando and gold prospector named Aatami (Jorma Tommila). While he is walking home with a huge cache of gold, Aatami encounters a Nazi death squad as it retreats the country, destroying settlements, killing civilians and taking women. The Germans, led by Bruno Helldorf (Aksel Hennie), have no idea what they’ve let themselves in for when they confront Aatami and take his gold.
When I heard that this was a 91-minute film about a Finnish man brutally killing Nazis, I thought this was going to be a pacey, propulsive action thriller with relentless, non-stop action and violence and it would fly by in no time at all. But this felt so long for such a short movie. It had great momentum at the start and end but it couldn’t keep it up in the middle and it really drags, especially when it breaks away from the action for a while.
You really have to suspend your disbelief with the outlandish and extremely far-fetched action in this movie. Our main man should have died many, many times but he is somehow invincible and able to survive the most unbelievable situations. It is implausible and very silly and all part of the film’s tongue-in-cheek tone, which is established with bold title cards denoting various chapters.
The action may be ridiculously over the top, but it is very entertaining. It is also pretty gory, with a couple of graphic kills that made me audibly gasp. I expected it to get progressively more violent as it went along but it goes quite hard from the beginning and remains at that level. Seeing the Nazis get dispatched in various ways is pretty satisfying, plus there is a girl power moment where the captives turn the tables on their captors and I cheered out loud.
Considering this is a Finnish film, I expected there to be a lot of subtitles but there aren’t. Our main man never speaks and for some inexplicable reason, the Nazis speak English.
I expected to like Sisu (meaning stoic determination, grit and perseverance) way more than I actually did. The concept is fun and the action is executed very well but it felt 30 minutes longer than it is.
In cinemas from Friday 26th May