Sisu dropped in 2023 and was a movie I had in my bucket list for a long time, actually did not know when I was going to watch but notice the 2025 sequel drop so yesterday at a family gathering decided to start watching and see how many get curious about, very well got another 4 to join me. This Finnish action movie ended up being way better than I expected, when you hear about a dude walking around with gold getting chased by Nazis during World War II you might think its going to be another boring historical war movie but nope this is something completely different. The whole movie is super simple and thats what makes it work so well, you got this old prospector played by Jorma Tommila who finds a massive stash of gold in the middle of nowhere Finland during the final days of the war and all he wants is to cash in his gold and go home but then he crosses paths with a retreating Nazi squad who decides they want his gold for themselves, bad mistake on their part because this guy turns out to be a legendary one man army who the Russians used to call The Immortal after he racked up over 300 confirmed kills fighting for Finland. The movie is divided into chapters which gives it this epic feel like your watching someones urban legend come to life instead of just another action movie, the main character barely speaks maybe three lines total in the entire thing and you learn everything about him through other people talking about his past which is pretty damn cool because it adds this larger than life quality to him. What really got me hyped was how committed this movie is to being a balls to the wall action fest without apologizing for what it is, director Jalmari Helander knew exactly what kind of movie he wanted to make and he went all in on the violence and over the top set pieces.
- IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt18177528/
- Platform: TUBI
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The action in Sisu is wild with heads exploding left and right, limbs getting blown off by landmines, brutal stabbings and the gore never feels cheap or fake looking which is rare for a movie with only a six million dollar budget. One of the standout sequences happens early on when our guy has to cross a minefield after his horse gets blown up and the Nazis send soldiers after him one by one, he starts throwing rocks at buried mines causing them to explode mid air and hit the soldiers in the face which was one of the most creative kills I have seen in years and had me laughing out loud in the theater. Then there is this underwater scene where he lights himself on fire to scare off attack dogs, jumps into a lake and when Nazi soldiers dive in after him he slits their throats and sucks the air bubbles out of their neck wounds to keep from drowning which sounds completely ridiculous when I type it out but somehow it works in the moment because the movie has already established this guy as damn near invincible. The whole vibe feels like a mix between old school Rambo movies and Expendables, very few words spoken just pure violent action and determination, you can tell Helander was inspired by directors like Sergio Leone with all the wide landscape shots and the way tension builds before fights break out. Every action scene has this raw brutal energy to it that modern Hollywood action movies seem afraid to show anymore, none of that shaky cam bullshit or quick cuts that hide the choreography, you see every stab every gunshot wound every explosion in full detail.
My biggest complaint and really the only thing that took me out of the movie was some of the stuff that happen towards the ending that pushes things way too far even for a movie this over the top, like I was totally cool with all the crazy violence and near death escapes until the airplane sequence near the end. This guy uses his pickaxe to hook onto the bottom of a plane as its taking off, somehow hangs on while the plane is flying at full speed thousands of feet in the air, cuts his way inside through the metal, fights the main Nazi villain, and then survives when the plane nose dives straight into the ground, he just straps himself to the wall with some rope and walks out of the crash site completely fine except for his previous injuries. That was the moment where I was like come on guys you did not need to go that far, everything else in the movie balanced between believable and ridiculous pretty well but that plane crash survival was just too much. The trailers also spoiled way too many of the best kills and set pieces which sucked because those moments would have hit so much harder if I did not already know they were coming, so if you have not watched any trailers yet do yourself a favor and go in blind because the surprises are way more satisfying. Another small issue is in the finale when all these badass kills could have happened with the pickaxe but instead the movie gives most of the action to the group of women prisoners who our guy saves along the way, do not get me wrong I liked that the women got their revenge on the Nazis who were abusing them but I barely knew these characters so I would have rather seen more of the main guy going ham with his weapons.
The production quality on this thing is way higher than you would expect for a six million dollar budget, the cinematography looks gorgeous with all these wide shots of the Finnish wilderness and destroyed towns, the practical effects for the gore are top notch and the whole aesthetic has this grimy brutal World War II vibe that feels authentic. Jorma Tommila is perfect as the lead, he has this rugged weathered look that makes you believe he has been through absolute hell and survived, his face tells the entire story without him needing to say a word and when he does finally speak at the very end its played for laughs in a great way. The movie is a very short one at only 90 minutes which I think works in its favor because it allows it to constantly pump dopamine into your brain and so it never drags in the middle, every scene either builds character or delivers action so there is no wasted time. I also loved how the movie shows the physical toll all this violence takes on him, he is constantly bleeding patching himself up with dirty bandages and rusty metal, very John Wick like, at one point he gets hanged by the Nazis and has to stab himself with a piece of rebar to take the pressure off his neck long enough to survive until they leave. The whole time you are watching this guy push through impossible pain and injuries through sheer force of will, the Finnish word sisu apparently means having courage and determination against impossible odds and this character embodies that concept perfectly throughout the entire movie. There is also this dog that follows him everywhere and somehow never dies despite being in multiple firefights and explosions, I was convinced they were going to kill the dog at some point for emotional impact but they never do which was a relief.
Overall Sisu delivers exactly what it promises, a lean mean action movie with incredible violence and a badass protagonist who refuses to die no matter what gets thrown at him, if you are into old school one man army movies like the original Rambo or those crazy 80s action stuff then this is absolutely worth watching. The ending could have been stronger and that airplane sequence was dumb as hell but everything else works so well that I can forgive those slip ups, the movie knows what it is and never tries to be anything more than a fun violent revenge story set during World War II. For such a short movie with little budget it did awesome and no wonder they went with a sequel that I am planning to watch soon, yes at times its a bit over the top but sometimes you just want to leave your brain at the door and watch something exciting although as I mention above there are limits and the movie certainly tests them more than once but they know how to keep things tight and never go too far. The director Jalmari Helander clearly loves action movies and knows how to shoot them, every frame looks intentional and the pacing never lets up once the action starts, I hope he gets to make more stuff like this because we need more directors willing to embrace this kind of unapologetic violence in action cinema. At the end of the day Sisu is a solid 8 out of 10 for me, it delivers on the adrenaline fueled chaos and has a main character who is cool as hell even if some moments push credibility way past the breaking point, if you can find it playing near you or when it hits streaming definitely give it a watch because its one of the better action movies to come out in the last few years.
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