For the past seven decades or so, Nazis and Russians have been western action cinema's two main go-to villains. With Sisu: Road to Revenge, aging Finnish tough guy Aatami Korpi (Jorma Tommila) joins Indiana Jones in becoming the rare action hero that has battled both Nazis and Russians.
In 2022's Sisu, writer/director Jalmari Helander introduced us to Korpi, a former Finnish commando whose wife and kids were slaughtered by Russians in the Winter War of 1939-40. A truce with Russia and the small matter of repelling German invaders meant Korpi couldn't avenge his family during WWII. But this sequel is set in 1946. The Germans are gone from Finland but the Russians have returned to occupy the region of Kerelia. That just happens to be Korpi's homeland. Returning home, he dismantles his family's house and loads it onto the back of a truck, planning to rebuild it in an unoccupied part of Finland.
When the Russian army learns that Korpi is in Karelia they spring from a Siberian prison the man who killed his family, ruthless Red Army officer Ivan Draganov (Stephen Lang), promising him a financial reward and freedom if he kills Korpi.
The Mad Max series proves a major influence on Helander's sequel, which essentially plays as one long chase. Korpi's truckload of timber plays the role of the oil tankers of George Miller's universe, and if you've seen Final Destination 2 you know just how much havoc can be caused by such a vehicle. Helander finds incredibly inventive ways to use slabs of timber as a weapon as Korpi fights off baddies on motorbikes, in jeeps and even in fighter planes. Korpi's determination to hang on to that symbolic timber sees it later redeployed as a raft. The Russians might have taken his homeland, but they won't take his home.
The Looney Tunes quality of the first film's action is escalated here, with little respect for the laws of gravity. Trucks, tanks and planes are tossed around as if by the hands of some invisible giant toddler. But Helander has added some more quiet and suspenseful sequences to his bag of tricks here. The movie's highlight is a sequence in which Korpi must silently make his way through train carriages filled with sleeping Russian grunts. It's the sort of set-piece you imagine might catch the eye of a certain Tom Cruise, and it's hard to think of a working filmmaker who might be better equipped to take over the Mission: Impossible franchise than Helander.
The first film was that rare modern action movie that you could watch with your dad, but the cartoonish nature of this sequel might make its appeal more limited in this regard. Helander has used his bigger budget to exaggerate everything in clever and inventive ways, much like Sam Raimi did with Evil Dead II. As Korpi, Tommila takes the sort of physical pounding Bruce Campbell was known for in Raimi's films, and Helander is so in on the joke that he even includes a gag involving a mousetrap. Some fans of Sisu might feel this sequel is a step too far in its silliness, but if you can embrace its over the top thrills there's much fun to be had here.
Directed by: Jalmari Helander
Starring: Jorma Tommila, Stephen Lang, Richard Brake
