Sisu is an enjoyable homage to Rambo but with much more badassery
Sisu, a 2022 historical action thriller written and directed by Jalmari Helander (Wing Man). The film is an enjoyable homage to Rambo but with much more badassery and even sweeter fight scenes. And after engaging in an hour-and-a-half of action, blood, guts, and sheer badassery, I’m of the opinion that more movies would benefit from having more scenes where Nazis are mercilessly mowed down. Did I mention Sisu contains Nazis? No? My bad. Allow me.
In a mostly wordless movie full of fist beating, excessive gunfire, and a plethora of exploding landmines, Sisu is set in 1944 during the last days of World War II on a scorched-earth retreat through Lapland, a snowy, northern region of Scandinavia. It follows Aatami Korpi (Jorma Tommila, of Rare Exports), a grizzled gold prospector and former military commander whose family was slaughtered during the war. In their absence, he’s lived a solitary life roaming Finland’s countryside with his horse and loyal dog, embodying the movie’s title.
Nearly untranslatable, the word sisu best translates, according to Helander, as, “a white-knuckled form of courage and unimaginable determination that manifests when all hope is lost” … the unrelenting will to survive. Aatami isn’t immortal, though; “he just refuses to die.”
While out panning for gold one day, Aatami finds a tiny nugget that entices him to start digging holes, excavating the land as gunfire and exploding shells encroach upon his antiquated site. When he finally strikes the motherload, he falls back, crying tears of ecstasy. He gathers up as much gold as he can take with him, then packs up his horse to head home. On the way—his fortune of nuggets tucked away in his horse’s saddlebags—he comes across a band of sullen Nazis led by a brutal SS officer, who are also hauling their own find: a cadre of young Finnish women. Aatami never says a word as the Nazis find and take his gold, then threaten him, which turns out to be a big mistake.
The fight to retrieve his loot inspires our hero with a supernatural kind of determination that’s as caked on him as the blood and mud lodged in the lines of his face. He fights across roads populated by landmines; he survives when the horse he’s riding triggers a landmine and explodes; he survives a hanging; he even slices men’s throats underwater and uses their air bubbles to stay underwater and breathe, thereby avoiding capture. Carnage drips from every corner of the frame in Sisu, which Director Jalmari Helander says is inspired by his favorite action movie of all time, Rambo.
Sisu is a visceral gut-punch that’s every bit as entertaining as John Wick, Rambo, Nobody, Mad Max: Fury Road, and The Raid but very much features its own level of badassery in Aatami’s ferocity, mental and physical toughness, creative fight sequences, and undying will to survive. He is one tough SOB, enacting some pretty sweet kill maneuvers and digging out his own bullets with
Sisu, a 2022 historical action thriller written and directed by Jalmari Helander (Wing Man). The film is an enjoyable homage to Rambo but with much more badassery and even sweeter fight scenes. And after engaging in an hour-and-a-half of action, blood, guts, and sheer badassery, I’m of the opinion that more movies would benefit from having more scenes where Nazis are mercilessly mowed down. Did I mention Sisu contains Nazis? No? My bad. Allow me.
In a mostly wordless movie full of fist beating, excessive gunfire, and a plethora of exploding landmines, Sisu is set in 1944 during the last days of World War II on a scorched-earth retreat through Lapland, a snowy, northern region of Scandinavia. It follows Aatami Korpi (Jorma Tommila, of Rare Exports), a grizzled gold prospector and former military commander whose family was slaughtered during the war. In their absence, he’s lived a solitary life roaming Finland’s countryside with his horse and loyal dog, embodying the movie’s title.
Nearly untranslatable, the word sisu best translates, according to Helander, as, “a white-knuckled form of courage and unimaginable determination that manifests when all hope is lost” … the unrelenting will to survive. Aatami isn’t immortal, though; “he just refuses to die.”
While out panning for gold one day, Aatami finds a tiny nugget that entices him to start digging holes, excavating the land as gunfire and exploding shells encroach upon his antiquated site. When he finally strikes the motherload, he falls back, crying tears of ecstasy. He gathers up as much gold as he can take with him, then packs up his horse to head home. On the way—his fortune of nuggets tucked away in his horse’s saddlebags—he comes across a band of sullen Nazis led by a brutal SS officer, who are also hauling their own find: a cadre of young Finnish women. Aatami never says a word as the Nazis find and take his gold, then threaten him, which turns out to be a big mistake.
The fight to retrieve his loot inspires our hero with a supernatural kind of determination that’s as caked on him as the blood and mud lodged in the lines of his face. He fights across roads populated by landmines; he survives when the horse he’s riding triggers a landmine and explodes; he survives a hanging; he even slices men’s throats underwater and uses their air bubbles to stay underwater and breathe, thereby avoiding capture. Carnage drips from every corner of the frame in Sisu, which Director Jalmari Helander says is inspired by his favorite action movie of all time, Rambo.
Sisu is a visceral gut-punch that’s every bit as entertaining as John Wick, Rambo, Nobody, Mad Max: Fury Road, and The Raid but very much features its own level of badassery in Aatami’s ferocity, mental and physical toughness, creative fight sequences, and undying will to survive. He is one tough SOB, enacting some pretty sweet kill maneuvers and digging out his own bullets with
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Short film