REVIEW: ‘SISU’ is Unstoppable

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Action films have gotten the limelight they deserve in the past few years, and SISU is another one you need to add to your list. A perfect double feature with John Wick and even Kill Boksoon, this Finnish WWII action feature from writer-director Jalmari Helander embodies elements of a Western but turns the violence up until the volume dial breaks off. Set during the last desperate days of WWII, Aatami Korpi (Jorma Tommila), a solitary prospector, crosses paths with Nazis on a scorched-earth retreat in northern Finland. As they burn and kill every person in their wake, Korpi on the other hand just mines his gold with a little dog. He’s bid adieu to the war, scare and all. But when the Nazis steal his gold, they quickly discover that they have just tangled with no ordinary miner.

The film grounds itself in the Finnish word “sisu.” Untranslatable, the sentiment is what matters. It means, per the film’s marketing materials and the character within it “a white-knuckled form of courage and unimaginable determination in the face of overwhelming odds.” That unrelenting determination shapes Korpi as our protagonist. No matter what the Nazis throw at him, no matter how high they hang him, he is the one-man death squad that goes to outrageous lengths to get his gold back.

SISU is simple in the ways that Westerns and Samurai films are simple. A lone silent man carrying mountains of trauma in his soul finds revenge by violently dishing out comeuppance to terrible people. As our lead, Jorma Tommila tells his story through his body. His physicality delivers loudly even though he has no lines until the end of the film. SISU uses its Western pacing and chapter breakdown to slowly build up to a truly wild finale. Starting with grounded action moments like knives through a skull until it crescendos with a truly epic stowaway on a plane, each act, no, each scene gets bigger than the last.

This build-up though is not unwarranted but instead completely grounded in the legend of “The Immortal,” the name given to Korpi after killing hundreds of Russians. While he never speaks until the very last moments of the film, the way he is talked about and what he survives create a legend. Like a god or demon, whichever side the storyteller falls on, the legend remains the same. We watch Korpi’s mythos grow larger and larger as the body count rises and, by the time the absolutely absurd third act ramps up, we’ve completely bought in.

Killing Nazis is an easy premise to sell for sure, but there is an art to how SISU does it. While most WWII films show German soldiers prim and proper in their Nazi uniforms, SISU consciously chooses to make these vile men look the part. Covered in ash and dirt, disheveled with uniforms incomplete or tattered. They’re losers who are losing and their violence and cruelty are outwardly exposed in just how nasty they look on screen.

This is a choice that seems simple on the surface but it rips away the crisp uniforms that other films let them hide behind and emphasizes their nature. As Korpi rips through the company of Nazis, the more disheveled, scared, and broken they become. Korpi circles them like a shark, and even when he’s gravely injured or seemingly killed, he comes back, pinching their escape further and further.

The Immortal just doesn’t stop.

Violence is a storytelling tool and, when it’s done with an understanding of the body and ways to break it, it can truly sing. SISU’s action sequences use guns, explosives, a knife in the water, planes, lighting yourself on fire to avoid a dog attack, tanks, cars, a pickaxe; they use everything creatively and, even in their absurdity, have enough grit and blood to pack a punch. While the film’s protagonist is silent, the action is anything but. That duality of aggressive fight sequences and explosive confrontations is balanced against the loneliness that cinematographer Kjell Lagerroos captures in every frame and lends to Korpi’s otherworldly nature as “The Immortal.”

Even with the stunning action sequences that embrace practical visual effects work as much CGI for its larger moments, the film’s score from Juri Seppä and Tuomas Wäinölä dials up the impact to another level. With Finnish chanting echoing in hammer drop moments and a rousing score to accompany it, holistically, SISU’s action is a phenomenon. Not to mention the absolute mayhem and visceral violence of body parts exploding, skin tearing, and so much more, this is a film for the action lover, the grindhouse lover, and it makes good on its promise to be unrelenting even in its even-handed pacing.

SISU captures the brutality of action cinema, the pay-off of a slowed Western pacing, and wraps it all in a story we can all get behind – killing Nazis. Excellently shot, scripted, and acted, this film is one that warrants a watch with friends to enjoy the violence to the fullest. While some think horror films have a corner on creative kills, SISU has their number.

SISU is in theaters on April 28, 2023.