‘Sisu’ Bombards You With Relentless Violence
“Sisu” is a movie that knows what it is, which is a constant barrage of cruelty and violence while telling the story of man’s near superhuman resilience. It’s the equivalent of eating a giant steak with no sides and only a little seasoning. You’ll be full, but you’ll be left wanting more flavor.
Jorma Tomilla plays a former Finnish commando living as an isolated gold prospector in Lapland, Finland, near the end of World War II. He’s stoic man who discovers a huge deposit of gold and crosses paths with a squad of Nazi soldiers in the middle of a scorched-earth campaign. What follows is a brutal, bitter conflict that offers tons of violent kills and not much else. The story and characters don’t have much going for them, and while Tomilla does a good job with his performance, there’s not much to his character other than a cliche backstory that describes how much of a badass he is.
This movie is like a slasher flick crossed with “Fury Road,” and while the kills can get creative and ridiculous in a fun way, I wish there was more heart underneath all the blood and gore. If the movie didn’t have the budget for constant spectacle or complicated choreography, then it would have been nice if it fleshed out the main character to be more interesting, but he doesn’t say a word for most of the movie. I know the entire focus of the movie is the violence, but even by action movie standards, what this film offers outside of all the kills is mediocre at best.
While there are a lot of fun and creative ways to kill Nazis, the use of CGI here can be distracting at times. Muzzle flashes on weapons and blood spurts look particularly stock and cheap, which is a shame because the rest of the movie does a lot with its budget in ways that don’t stick out. There are also moments in action scenes that cut too soon -- it would have been interesting to show the rest of what happened.
If you have the appetite for a ton of gore and violence with a bleak atmosphere then “SIsu” has that covered. It’s a movie that starts out fun, but there’s a point at which you realize it doesn’t have anything more up its sleeve, and the violence just continues -- without much else to keep your interest.
Author Bio:
Ulises Duenas is a senior writer at Highbrow Magazine.
For Highbrow Magazine