PREMISE
A man returns to dismantle his family’s house, where they were murdered in war, to rebuild it elsewhere. When the killer, a Red Army commander, tracks him down, a brutal cross-country pursuit begins.
THE GOOD STUFF
BLOOD, GUTS, MAYHEM- I can only assume that if you’re buying a ticket for the sequel to Sisu, you’re aware of the kind of action that you’re going to get. The question in purchasing the ticket is whether it will measure up to the firework show of carnage that the first one was, and the answer is… yes. There are a lot of inventive, over-the-top, and unintentionally funny action scenes that defy the laws of physics and are about as gory as mainstream movies can get. For sheer action junkies, this is going to satisfy your every need, quite honestly, and it hasn’t misrepresented itself at all.
STEPHEN LANG- Stephen Lang is a man who, all at once, is one of the more impressive character actors in the game today, and a man who, at 73 years old, can pull off roles such as this one with complete physical believability. As opposed to the Liam Neeson’s and Denzel Washington’s of the world (respectfully, of course) this is a man in his seventies that does not need quick cuts or clever stand in wide shots to show that he can pull off a lot of the physical stuff required. His character in this film is the kind of antagonist that isn’t surrounded by swagger and braggadocio. He’s just monstrous enough to compete with Sisu while being a villain that really doesn’t have a justifiable motive to be as evil as he is.
THE BAD STUFF
PACING- They’re undeniable strengths and weaknesses to having a movie move at the breakneck speed that this does. This is a film that is 1 hour and 26 minutes and has five distinctive chapters, all with action pretty much from beginning to end. Sounds great, right? I’m not saying that it isn’t, but now and again you might have to use the restroom. It can be said that if you use the restroom at a movie that moves this quickly, you’re more than likely going to miss an element of some of the action that’s going on. A lot of these sequences are 10 minutes a pop. Be sure you have someone with you to tell you what you missed, because you might miss a lot if that bathroom break is longer than you expect.
THE UGLY STUFF
OUR PROTAGONIST- I understand the gimmick of having the main protagonist of this film (whose name is not Sisu, but actually Aatami Korpi) not having dialogue. It’s a very old-school Western feel, with protagonists from that era who also didn’t have much dialogue, if any. However, this is 2025. You simply cannot make iconic action characters this way. The main protagonist of this film is quite a paradox. He is as badass as any action character that has ever been put to screen. He’s an elderly John Wick that’s been set in World War 2. It’s the perfect kind of action character to build a franchise around…. The problem is he’s not a character, he’s a plot device. Had this protagonist had any, and I mean f****** any kind of an interaction with other characters on screen that wasn’t a physical battle, something that brought out an affability to his personality, something that showed that he can have a heart of gold behind this super badass exterior… Then this would be an iconic character.
There’s an amazing moment in this movie when a group of men offers him an act of kindness out of nowhere. And he’s so touched by this gesture that he almost breaks down in tears because he is so used to cruelty and violence in the time frame of World War II, that an act of simplistic humanity is the most moving thing in the world to him. The scene is beautiful. It’s the kind of scene we need for badass action characters to become iconic. But as quickly as this scene arrives, it’s over, and it doesn’t have time to have an impact.
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As a man who always prefers the experience to streaming services or home viewing in general, it pains me to say that something like this would have been better on a streaming service that could have properly thrown the right kind of money at it to give it some sort of backbone amidst all the physical chaos. These Sisu movies are incredible action adrenaline feasts. But they don’t have heart, they don’t have character, there’s no identity. The emptiest calories.
Try and follow me here: Imagine somebody serving you what they call a slice of chocolate cake, but there is no cake….there’s only frosting. Sure, it tastes good. Sure, it satisfies your sweet tooth, but there’s nothing to chew on. It’s just a block of chocolate frosting. That only sounds awesome to a certain group of people who don’t care how they get their sugar fix. But to the vast majority of us who genuinely enjoy cake, we might take a bite or two before we realize that it is not a cake. It’s delicious, non-filling, empty calories. That’s what these Sisu movies are. No cake. Only action movie frosting.
Hope that makes sense.
SISU: ROAD TO REVENGE is in theaters now
