Finnish director Jalmari Helander already has one modern cult classic under his belt with 2010’s twisted Christmas fantasy Rare Exports. He has another at the ready in Sisu.
As a title crawl explains, practically doubling as a synopsis, the word “sisu” means white-knuckled courage that comes forth only when all hope is lost. In 1944 Finland, a battle-scarred soldier (Helander regular Jorma Tommila, Big Game) deserts the war (WWII, you may have heard of it) and wanders the sprawling vistas of the wild with his trusty dog.
Lucking into a life-changing cache of gold, he needs all the sisu he can muster, which is a lot, when tanks and trucks of Nazis cross his path. (Understandably in today’s topsy-turvy world, it’s not enough for them to be Nazis; Helander makes them child-raping Nazis.) Led by an SS officer with the appropriate name of Helldorf (Aksel Hennie, The Martian), they’re rendered surface-level despicable — more characterization than they deserve.
From there, Sisu is one set piece after another, with a minimum of dialogue and a maximum of bloody action. Painted with strokes as mythic as The Man with No Name, Mad Max and Rambo, our rumored-immortal hero exacts justice that’s swift, brutal and cathartic, whether navigating minefields or hanging on an ascendant plane via pickax; not for nothing was he known as a “one-man death squad” while under conscription. Helander knows just how to handle him: as a movie icon in the making, even if his exploits are one or two reels too long in the knocked-out tooth. —Rod Lott