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The Manic Hardiness of the Sisu Sequel

Perhaps more action movies should function also as history lessons the way that Sisu does -at least for non-Finnish audiences largely unfamiliar with Finland and its consecutive bad relationships with Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. A country that has been victimized by multiple more powerful states through the ages the way that Finland has deserves a character like Aatami Korpi to enact a bit of cathartic vengeance on behalf of his people. Certainly it feels more righteous than something like Rambo II applying the same dynamic to America and Vietnam, though Korpi has clearly taken some influence from Rambo as a character. Yet he is far more of a virtually supernatural unkillable beast than Stallone could have turned his wronged war vet into.
Sisu: Road to Revenge is just as hardcore as the first film if not quite as novel. It’s fitting that even just a real-time lapse in the movie’s setting renders the circumstance for its lead character (who again is NOT called ‘Sisu’) very different -while also somewhat the same. In the wake of the Second World War, Finland almost immediately exchanged one neighbouring oppressor for another, and writer-director Jalmari Helander does well to craft a more personal mission for his hero without tarnishing his silent formidable gravitas and mystique.
Like the first movie, this Sisu sequel opens with narration explaining the context of post-war Finland and how the Karelia territory -historically a part of Finland- was ceded to Soviet Russia, forcing the expulsion of many Finns from their homeland to the right side of their new border. Among these is ex-commando Aatami Korpi, played once again by Jorma Tommila, who makes the bold illegal journey back across the border to dismantle his family home piece by piece to transport it and rebuild it in Finland. In response, the KGB  sends after him the ruthless soldier Igor Draganov (Stephen Lang), the man who murdered Korpi’s family, to stop and kill him however he can.
Once again, Korpi is silent through his entire screen-time, and though bestowed with a tragic backstory, retains his enigmatic presence and hardened persona -occasionally breaking a tad for moments of comic stress, which several beats in the movie give licence for. Tommila’s discipline is only matched by his energetic hardiness for a man of his age -he is in his late sixties- impressive, given a lot of the stunts are performed by him personally. And he does well at embodying that titular sentiment -Sisu again being a distinctly Finnish concept of bravery, resilience, and endurance- as he is once more positioned as a kind of cultural folk hero and embodiment of the Finnish character broadly in the face of this level of aggression -which is incredibly intense.
The depiction of the Russians in this movie is reminiscent of that of the British in Indian movies with similar themes of mythologizing cultural fortitude like RRR. They aren’t just evil, but opportunistic and psychotic -especially those commanders like Draganov and his immediate superior played by Richard Brake. And to capture Korpi, Draganov sends everything at him he can think of -in spite of the violent intensity of Korpi’s responses. A truck of some agents is small potatoes next to multiple fighter planes chasing down his own truck on the road. What’s more remarkable though is his ability to consistently beat them. Helander is quite creative in his staging of the action beats, going as big as he can in how Korpi can match these odds. His downing of a plane from his little truck is a particularly inspired bit of ridiculousness, his inventive means of salvaging his wood when losing his truck and then commandeering of a tank likewise. And these have nothing on his actions through the climax set on a train, where things almost echo a touch of Nikhil Nagesh Bhat’s Kill, but with a sense of self-aware morbid humour. There is a Silence of the Lambs kind of play in there and a couple sequences that feel like a video game obstacle course that Korpi must maneuver without waking a carriage full of sleeping soldiers. And then there is the truly unhinged Chekhov’s gun of the last act involving a ballistic missile. It’s all pretty fun and amusing, the hyper-reality of this world conveyed convincingly to their tenor; and though Korpi is a juggernaut he’s never rendered totally untouchable in a boring way.
Lang, a veteran of B-movie villain roles, fits the bill well as his nemesis, cruel and calculating and with a decently cartoonish Russian accent. Unlike the Nazis of the first film, he has the semblance of an arc of his own, in the manner of his being used by the Soviet military apparatus -having been imprisoned himself before this assignment- and invested in a little revenge of his own. Otherwise there are no characters who aren't simple obstacles for Korpi to knock down, the film unconcerned with expanding the premise beyond its strict gut purposes.
Like its predecessor, there is a potent gnarly quality to the violence and Korpi's endurance. As is expected -and the movie does follow an incredibly routine story structure- Korpi is at one point captured and the torture he undergoes, though a lot of it is implied, is quite brutal, as he comes into the last act sweat-caked and dripping in blood. It's a feature of his raw toughness and primal masculinity, and is effective for its punchiness as Helander uses it -in swift bursts rather than drawn-out beats. But in general, the movie's excesses are obligated to go beyond what the first film did, and there is a little bit of shallowness in that as a priority for the movie, which doesn't feel so spontaneous as a result.
Sisu: Road to Revenge delivers partly on that Mad Max-sounding subtitle choice, though it is more brutish in aesthetic in keeping with its classic Scandinavian character (Korpi could be interpreted as a latter-day Viking). Aspects of it are a touch repetitive from the first, it's not so original or surprising. But the chaotic action is still engaging and proudly overzealous, with a few beats of very fun madness -especially through the climax. ‘Sisu’ still accurately describes this character and his outrageous adventures of vivid revenge and patriotism as Finland's great superhero.

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