There was no apparent want for a sequel on the finish of “Sisu.” Jalmari Helander’s 2023 historic thriller follows a grizzled Finnish man who battles a crew of Nazis attempting to steal his gold and finishes the job so definitively that he most likely accounts for a strong 30 p.c of the German casualties within the Lapland Battle. However when your protagonist is so arduous to kill that his enemies name him “The Immortal,” it will be a disgrace to waste the franchise potential when so many different nefarious actors occupied the world stage within the Nineteen Forties.
Helander’s follow-up, “Sisu: Highway to Revenge,” shifts its ire from Nazis to Soviets, however the narrative bones stay almost an identical to the primary movie. A gaggle of World Battle II-era dangerous guys as soon as once more mess with the unsuitable senior citizen, who has endured a lot loss that he now has nothing to lose, and he proceeds to unleash his wrath on each final one in every of them. Lest anybody was involved that it will change the components an excessive amount of, the sequel even opens with the very same title card: Sisu is a Finnish phrase that can not be translated. It means a white-knuckled type of braveness and unimaginable dedication. Sisu manifests itself when all hope is misplaced.
That type of braveness and unimaginable dedication is as soon as once more embodied by Aatami Korpi (Jorma Tommila), who can’t get the world to depart him alone, irrespective of how arduous he tries. After spending World Battle II looking for gold within the wilderness exterior Helsinki, he’s made it again to his previous house in Soviet-occupied Karelia by 1946. The home is crammed with bittersweet recollections for Aatami, who raised a household in it earlier than Russian troops killed his spouse and kids. Concurrently needing a recent begin however unable to sever his final bodily ties together with his murdered family members, he disassembles the home and hundreds the lumber onto his truck with the hope of rebuilding it someplace freed from Russian interference.
However when Russian troops get phrase of Aatami’s presence, they will’t depart effectively sufficient alone. Sadistic Purple Military officer Igor Draganov (Stephen Lang) — a villain so black-and-white that he casually remarks that he has killed so many ladies and kids that their remaining screams all run collectively — is tasked with ending the job he began when he murdered the remainder of Aatami’s household. He enlists the empire’s most interesting land, air, and sea forces to cease the person they name “The Immortal” by any means obligatory. But when “Sisu” taught us something, it’s that there aren’t sufficient means on the earth to convey down Aatami Korpi.
Regardless of being subtitled like a direct-to-VOD Steven Seagal movie, “Sisu: Highway to Revenge” was clearly crafted by artists who know what they’re doing and care concerning the completed product. No motion is ever wasted, and the elegant combat choreography retains issues transferring swiftly sufficient to make sure we by no means have time to cease and contemplate how skinny a few of the character growth is. Like its predecessor, it lacks a few of the operatic grandeur of the “Mad Max” movies that impressed the franchise, nevertheless it makes up for it by limiting itself to 90 minutes of morally unambiguous thrills earlier than letting everybody get on with their day.
Helander appears effectively conscious that these high-octane battle sequences and seemingly invincible protagonist stay the franchise’s foremost promoting factors, however “Sisu: Highway to Revenge” ends with a coda that not less than raises questions concerning the toll that such a bloody life can tackle a human being. It’s not clear the place else the collection has to go — each when it comes to the character’s journey and the truth that Finland solely had so many geopolitical foes within the Nineteen Forties — but when the story ends right here, our journey with Aatami may have been a satisfying one.
Then once more, we additionally mentioned that after the primary “Sisu” film, so who is aware of what Helander and firm are able to cooking up subsequent.
Grade: B
A Sony Photos launch, “Sisu: Highway to Revenge” opens in theaters on Friday, November 21.
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