Sisu

Finland. 1944.

(Shout out to the Winter War, birthplace of the Molotov Cocktail!)

It’s the final days of World War II, and the Nazis are retreating from heavy losses in northern Finland. Those Nazis cross paths with a solitary gold prospector who has just hit the mother lode. Once, during the Winter War, this prospector was known as the Immortal. He’s a man the Russians now speak of in frightened whispers, a legend, a boogeymen, with hundreds of kills to his name. The day those Nazis decide to try to steal his gold, he starts adding new names to that list…

Sisu is really fun.

Sisu is a Finnish concept described as a tenacity of purpose, grit, extraordinary determination in the face of extreme adversity, or courage where success is unlikely. Although generally considered not to have a literal equivalent in English, it is similar to the idea of being “gutsy” and is held by Finns to express their national character.

The film itself is not deep. There’s no greater meaning. It’s just fun, mostly because it is unashamedly over-the-top nonsense.

Sisu is the Finnish version of the familiar Man With No Name meets John Wick type of thing that’s so popular right now, full of silly action beats and inventive kills and buckets of bloody splatter. It doesn’t excuse itself, or try to redeem the bad guys, and why would it… they’re Nazis, who, as everyone knows—except for a large portion of White America—are neither redeemable, nor are they human, so kill away, right? This is Sisu’s one big plus… There is tons of Nazi killing. Tons. Butt loads. And all of it is done in the glorious technicolor cinematic traditions of the spaghetti westerns and neo-grindhouse Tarantino-stained gorefest shoot-em-ups that inspired it.

Inspired is a key word here, though.

See, if this kind of film isn’t your usual thing, then you’ll probably be shocked and wowed and maybe a little disgusted by what you see, possibly even horrified.

But…

If you’ve seen a couple of these types of films before, it’ll be obvious to you that, despite its fervent desire, Sisu isn’t so much grindhouse, as it is grindhouse fanfic. That’s not a bad thing, but still… there’s a bit too much homage here, and not enough wild abandon in it’s own distinct voice.

That having been said… it’s fun. Fun and bloody with plenty of explosions, so if that’s all you’re looking for, then you’ll find it here.

Also, and this really annoys me… at the end of the film, the Nazis are flying a C-47 with Nazi markings, which is bullshit, and also they’re using it as a bomber, which is dumb. What the fuck, you guys? Google is your friend.