Sisu

Sisu

Writer & Director - Jalmari Helander

2023, Finland-United Kingdom

Stars - Jorma Tommila, Aksel Hennie, Jack Doolan

 

A grizzled prospector finally finds gold in the last days of WWII, but then he runs into Nazis and they want it too.

 

Both Jalmari Helander’s ‘Rare Exports’ and ‘Big Game’ felt like premises that were enjoyable near-misses. ‘Sisu’ is the same, in that there’s the feeling that it could have been so much more, that’s its underselling its assets. Although as splendid as it looks, as fun as its WWII/Spaghetti Western mash-up is, it perhaps errs on the side of forsaking any grounding in reality. Although there is initial excitement at the idea of all this playing out in a wasteland where there’s nowhere to run, it rapidly emerges that such problems are solved by indulging in the trend of shrugging off any semblance of realism: he gets hung but it’s clear by that point that he will survive with movie immunity. (And to think I once had issues with ‘Die Hard’ coz I didn’t think it was realistic that they could hug just after he had surely savaged his back by swinging through a window.) When the impossible thing occurs in ‘No One Lives’ happens, it’s hilarious in its audaciousness; when audaciousness is the default here, the surprise and humour wanes. The early minefield game-of-wits stays just the right side, even with the mine-frisbee (that’s funny), but by the end our guy would be dead twenty time over at least. The impossibility of it all and the outrageousness is good for a few chuckles, and we are not expecting total allegiance to plausibility, not at all, but when it becomes apparent that nothing is really at stake, we’re left just with Nazi-bashing and minimal investment.

 

But it’s done really well, and that’s the thing. There’s Helander regulars Jorma and Onni Tommila, with the former holding it all together with a relentlessly stern gaze in place of dialogue. Although Aksel Hennie does match him as a memorable Nazi visage. Kjell Lagerroos’ cinematography is excellent; the pacing is steady instead of frenetic; it’s gleefully pulpy. Not quite as dumb-hijinx as, say, ‘Mad Heidi’, not quite as daftly po-faced as John Wick, but in the same playpens: somewhere between the horror genre’s outrageousness and the action genre’s foregoing of realism. And, despite the tagline, he's not avenging anything, really - although it gets "golden" in there - as he's just killing for the shiny stuff.

 

It’s good-looking fun, at least.