Nordic Watchlist shares their Sisu: Road To Revenge film review.
It’s hard to talk about the action-comedy Sisu: Road to Revenge without talking a bit about the first film that came out in 2022, Sisu. When it came out, it quickly gained a cult following and hype due to its campy kill scenes and white knuckled survival instinct of the lead character Aatami played by Jorma Tommila.
The reviewer of this article admits he was not on the hype train for the first film at all. It took itself very seriously for the amount of silly stuff that happens in it. Starting off almost exactly like There Will be Blood with about 15 mins of Aatami digging for gold (in There will be Blood it was oil, but ultimately the same idea) and then the Nazis try to steal his gold. The rest of the film is a simple cat and mouse game where Aatami seems to survive just about anything, making the cat Tom from Tom & Jerry look at the audience, shake his head in disapproval and say “Don’t you believe it”
John Wick, a film with a similar concept (and clearly an inspiration for Sisu) works because it manages to create a unique world and a style which makes it believable that John Wick survives the action he goes through. But when a film takes itself too seriously and pretends to happen in the real world like Sisu, it loses the believability that Aatami can survive the action he goes through.
So as I sat down in the auditorium to watch Sisu: Road to Revenge, with hard-faced critics armed with pens and notepads all around me, I didn’t have much faith in the film I was about to watch.
My first surprise was when we were fairly early in the film and the auditorium filled with critics burst out with laughter – The good kind of laughter that would have made the director Jalmari Helander proud. And when I left the auditorium, I had my next surprise: I actually really enjoyed this film, and dare to say it was better than the first.
Now let’s dive a bit deeper into: Sisu: Road to Revenge.
It already starts by fixing one of the main problems I had with the first film, Aatami is given a better goal throughout the film. In Sisu (2022) Aatami is fighting tooth and nail for the gold he worked so hard for, which is a simple enough goal, but I would argue it’s too simple. Because, at the end of the day, a few lumps of gold don’t seem worth hanging outside an airplane in mid air for.
In Road to Revenge the soviets have pushed the Finnish border back, so Aatami’s old family house is now on the soviet side of the border. Aatami goes back to his old family house with the goal to dismantle it, load it on a truck and build it up again on the Finnish side of the border. This is a goal worthy of hanging outside of an airplane in mid air for. It has emotional depth, it’s grounded and makes me as an audience member care more.
So Aatami’s journey, travelling with the timber across the border, starts, and the first half an hour feels like an independent film crew’s homage to Mad Max: Fury Road. And for the most part, it’s alright and brings many creative kills to the screen. I was, however, relieved when the film switched gears and started being itself instead of a homage to a different film.
One of the reasons Road to Revenge worked better than the first was its use of comedy. Road to Revenge has the type of comedy that works best in a full cinema auditorium or at home with family and friends watching with you. Sisu was filmed as a drama and didn’t have a lot of comedy, so when Aatami was hanging by his neck on a rope for ages, they filmed it as a drama, making the whole sequence a bit tedious to watch.
It also made me question why Aatami was still alive. But when Aatami spat a bullet out of his mouth in Road To Revenge, I didn’t question the logic or why he was still alive, because then they filmed it as a comedy. (Think about when Jim Carrey catches a bullet with his mouth in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective; it works because it’s a comedy) The comedy also helps Road to Revenge find its own style, which makes the campy, bonkers stuff that happens work. Similar to what I mentioned before about John Wick working because it’s stylised.
The only comedy bit in Sisu (2022) was the final scene. I won’t spoil it but it turned the whole plot of the film into one underwhelming pun, which is not bad; many films have done the same. But the ending of Road to Revenge took an unexpected turn, it really brought both films home with a good, rewarding touch. And it also ended in such a way that I don’t feel like I can watch one without the other.
So to tie everything down, if you are going to watch Sisu, watch Road To Revenge immediately after, as it does serve as a better ending, tying both together. Recommended to watch it with friends or to laugh at with your dad. I would refer to watching alone. This is a campy action comedy with a nice Scandinavian humour to it and great homage to other action films. The only thing missing was the use of the Finnish language. I feel it would have worked better if everyone had spoken Finnish instead of their weird US-accented English.
Sisu 2: Road to Revenge comes to UK Cinemas from the 21st November
