When you have a film with as little dialogue as Sisu, the filmmakers have to raise their game in many ways. Several establishing shots pack so much information into such simple imagery. The circumstances that led to the main character Aatami’s (Jorma Tommila) relentlessness are also told wordlessly.
The violence is ramped up to a ridiculous extreme but since the receivers of the carnage are Nazis you don’t feel that the actions are unwarranted. It is cartoonish in nature but always entertaining. The work is littered with nods to Quentin Tarantino so if you find that auteur’s take on brutality palatable then this will be right up your alley.
Set in the waning days of World War II, a scorched Northern Finland provides the backdrop for the actions of Aatami. He is a prospector with a past and when the Nazis rob him of his gold they find out that that past has consequences in the present. He becomes unstoppable and those in his way pay the ultimate price.
That Sisu is so entertaining is due in no small part to the skill of writer/director Jalmari Helander who was the person behind that anti-Christmas classic Rare Exports. He speaks with a vocabulary imbued with so many touchstones of great action films that have come before and he pays loving homage to them all.
Rob Hudson
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