Rating: B
Dir: Jalmari Helander
Star: Jorma Tommila, Stephen Lang, Richard Brake
It isn’t as if Sisu was a film in need of a sequel. However, it was such fun, I’m not going to complain about getting one. Inevitably, it’s not quite as fresh. But Helander does well enough, in ramping things up, you’d be hard-pushed to call this any significant disappointment. The violence is more excessive and the hero more taciturn. Indeed, I don’t think Aatami Korpi (Tommila) says a single word this time round, making him a sort of spiritual descendant of the Viking hero from Valhalla Rising. This takes place just after the end of World War 2, which means Korpi gets to kill truckloads of Commies this time, rather than Nazis. Hey, turnabout is fair play.
It’s because the Soviet Union has annexed a chunk of Finland, including Korpi’s home. Of course, he simply drives into Russia with a truck, dismantles his house, and loads it up, intending to rebuild it back in Finland. However, Yeagor Draganov (Lang), the Soviet Red Army officer responsible for killing Korpi’s family before the events of the first film, is unleashed to finish off the job. After discovering, first-hand, how difficult Korpi is to kill, it seems he has eventually prevailed, capturing his target and bringing him back. But Korpi is the kind of guy who hides a knife inside his thigh. Read that again. Slowly. For emphasis: inside his thigh. Yeah, Draganov might not be quite as much in control as he thinks.
The first half feels like a Finnish version of Mad Max: Fury Road, showcasing some inventive and, truth be told, fairly ludicrous vehicular mayhem. The way Korpi disposes of the two dive-bombers sent to strafe him, rates particularly high on the “I’m-So-Sure”-ometer. Then, after he is captured, it becomes more like John Wick, Korpi chewing his way through the length of the train on which he is being held. Yet, pointedly, he only kills those who are an immediate threat. Early on, he lets Draganov live, and on the train, he uses stealth rather than violence to move. Well, until necessary. Then it’s violence all the way, culminating in an explosion, the size of which suggests the Soviet nuclear program was further advanced in 1946 than commonly thought.
It is a little too far beyond what I like from my action movies. Moments like the tank doing a front-flip, for example, may have broken the “I’m-So-Sure”-ometer. It turns into a Looney Tunes cartoon, at odds with the bloody and uber-gritty neo-war film we get in other aspects. The positives still outweigh the flaws, with Lang doing a fine job on most of the emotional lifting, given Tommila’s muteness. Mind you, why bother saying anything? The hero has simple goals, and woe beside anyone who decides to try and interfere with them. Korpi just wants to pick up his house and go home. He is the kind of man who, you feel, could do that, without needing a truck.
This is part of our World in Action feature, covering action movies around the globe.