Review: Sisu

Is Sisu the best movie of 2023? If what you want from a film is a series of increasingly nasty and brutal execution-style killings of various thoroughly unpleasant Nazis, then let's go with "probably". An extremely satisfying slice of pulp violence, it knows exactly what it's doing and delivers in every scene. As far as films go where the hero uses a mining pick to hook himself onto a plane as it's taking off so he can kill everyone on board, this is at the head of the pack.

It's the dying days of World War II and Finland - which for a while there was fighting alongside the Nazis - has switched sides. Not that it matters to Aatami Korpi (Jorma Tommila), who has retired from war and is now just a gold prospector hoping to strike it lucky. 

Which he does and then some; now he has to get the gold into town and into a bank, and the only thing standing between him and his goal is the retreating German army. They're operating under a scorched earth policy; some of their cannier soldiers - most notably Helldorf (Aksel Hennie) and his sidekick Wolf (Jack Doolan) - have one eye on how they're going to get out of Europe entirely.

When Helldorf an his men encounter Korpi they let him pass: he's an old man with a horse and a dog and not much else, plus there are more soldiers coming along to take care of him. Unfortunately for those other soldiers, Korpi is a killing machine who wipes them out when they discover his gold. Helldorf turns his tank back to investigate, and an extremely bloody chapter of the war is about to begin. 

As much (or more) a spaghetti western as it is a war movie (think Tarantino without the dialogue), this carefully ratchets up the carnage scene by bloody scene. By the time things start to get a little (well, a lot) implausible it all fits seamlessly into the insanely violent world that's been established. 

Killing someone by throwing a land mine at their helmet is only the beginning, and while the violence is the main draw here there's just enough plot and characterisation going on to tell a highly entertaining story where a lot of scumbags get what they deserve.

Korpi survives an implausible amount of damage, but that's what the film is about. "Sisu" is a uniquely Finnish characteristic that means something like "too stubborn to die". And so he proves to be. 

At 90 minutes it gets the job done and then some with a minimum of messing about; the one subplot about the women the Nazis have kidnapped just opens the door for some bonus vengeance.  If Finland wants to be the home of thrilling pulp action, they're off to a rip-roaring start.

- Anthony Morris