Jonah Naplan   May 20, 2023

“Sisu” seems to be Finland’s entry in a fight for freedom that’s not anything more than imaginary. Yet the film’s landscape—the 1944 Finnish battlegrounds occupied by Nazis—is anything but. Keep a firm grasp on that notion of practicality before you go too far though. The austere version of the global war in which the world of “Sisu” takes place in is not necessarily one filled with the tales that your grandfather may have passed down. “Sisu” exists in an improbable manifesto that is equal parts jingoistic and dismal. Writer and director Jalmari Helander is balancing a tonal mix of anti-Nazi propaganda against a vibrant slideshow of gore and brutality as portrayed almost like a category of “John Wick.” Miraculously, “Sisu” also manages to be bundles of fun.

The film opens with narration that introduces our main character, a grizzled prospector named Aatami Korpi (Jorma Tommila), as “a man who has decided to leave the war behind him, for good.” We know barely anything about this man. He has scars. He’s tough. He’s been searching for some time for gold that will make him rich. That’s about it. And “Sisu” doesn’t need to provide anything more. Our protagonist has a name, but even that could be considered unnecessary. In an opening scene, Korpi finally gets his big break when he discovers a few dozen nuggets of gold hidden away in the crevices of rocks and dirt. That first chapter is titled “The Gold” in the film.

And once “Sisu” proceeds to “Chapter Two: The Nazis,” Korpi is found trotting along on his horse across the Finnish countryside. On his first encounter with Nazi soldiers, he’s ignored just enough to get by safely. But the second time he’s stopped, all hell breaks loose, leaving the ground littered with dead bodies, all by the hand of Korpi. That is not the last time “Sisu” will be gruesomely violent. In fact, it’s barely a warm-up.

Among very little, what we do figure out about Korpi almost immediately is that he must have had some past as a vicious killer. One wary Nazi general does not eschew from the fact that Korpi apparently has the killings of 300 Russians to his name. There’s a heavy, Rambo-like tint to his presence; a veteran who has seen and done hellish things in his lifetime, but has retreated to gentler hobbies in the recent decades, until he is forced back into battle. The film is smart to leave Korpi’s character in anonymity for the entire movie. If it had decided to go into flashbacks and lore, I suspect “Sisu” wouldn’t feel nearly as tight of a thriller.

“Sisu” has one clear, bloodthirsty objective. Nazis steal gold from prospector. Prospector has hidden skills. Prospector kills some of their men in an attempt to get gold back. Now Nazis are simultaneously on prospector’s trail as prospector fights to get back what is rightfully his. The term “finders keepers” is loosely embedded in the framework. It’s all packed into a taut, 91-minute runtime that runs at an impressive breezy pace.

Korpi’s journey to regain his property is also a mission to free the group of rape-objectified women held in a cargo truck towed behind the Nazi tanks. These women are unnamed, but all are fearless caricatures, headlining a battle-heavy third act that does more than scream female empowerment. One standout performance from Mimosa Willamo is able to convey so much even with very few lines of dialogue.

Much of your enjoyment of “Sisu” is based on whether you squirm while watching or take pleasure in the endless gore and carnage that slithers through the frames of this film like a snake. It’s a lot—and I mean A LOT. Sometimes it’s a little bit too much. In The New York Times review of “Sisu,” Calum Marsh writes, “For all its gung-ho violence, the film never feels fraught or nasty enough: It never risks true offense or tastelessness, never takes a gamble on anything that could be interpreted the wrong way or that might sidestep expectations. Somehow it makes killing Nazis feel pretty tame.” I completely disagree. I don’t know what other movies about killing Nazis—besides Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds”—Mr. Marsh has seen to compare “Sisu” to, but I found that the film never held back, and took several risks. In fact, I’d call the existence of “Sisu” itself a risk.

But beyond the ferociousness of the bloodshed, “Sisu” is one of, if not the most visually stunning movie of the year so far. The landscape of Finland, crafted by Helander and cinematographer Kjell Lagerroos is a searing portrait of the sincere poise a cataclysmic event like World War II sacrificed. And to put rhyme with reason, “Sisu” places shots of the green, bountiful countryside in between the sequences of gore to act as a palette-cleanser and as a means of letting us quickly catch our breath before the next extravagant brawl.

Via an opening title card, the word “Sisu” can be most closely defined as grit and determination when staring adversity in the face. In the case of this film, Korpi radiates a breathless perseverance that is unyielding. “He’s not immortal,” one character says. “He just refuses to die.” Korpi’s mission, matched with Tommila’s excellent performance and Helander’s vision could be perceived as an allegory for the ways in which forgotten heroes make their comeback. And when “Sisu” starts to devolve in new directions, it realizes its place in the question. More often than not, it’s a battlecry.

Now playing in theaters.