One of the surprises of 2022 was Sisu, a kicky, brutal action flick from Finland starring Jorma Tommila as Aatami Korpi, a former one-man walking genocide soldier turned prospector, as he killed many many MANY Nazis at the end of WWII after they stole the gold he'd mined. Seemingly invincible, the old guy made John Wick look like a beta soy bitch as he withstood massive physical abuse while dishing out much worse.
Since that which is rewarded gets repeated, it's not much surprise as writer-director Jalmari Helander has returned to the well for Sisu: Road to Revenge which takes place a couple years after the events of the fist film. After WWII, Finland gave up a chunk of their Eastern border to the Soviet Union causing hundreds of thousands of Finns to migrate Westward. Korpi's family home was in the territory forfeited, so we open with him crossing into the USSR with a truck to dismantle the house, stack it up, and take it back to Finland.
As he's doing this, we jump to Siberia where Igor Draganov (Stephen Lang, Avatar) is imprisoned. He's hauled out of his cell and told Korpi has entered Soviet territory and since he murdered Korpi's wife and two young sons, hacking them to pieces with shovels - "We were saving ammunition," explains Draganov - and Korpi then killed over 300 Ruskies in response, he'll get a pardon if he cleans up his mess.
The rest of the film, each chapter titled like videogame levels, consists of Draganov dispatching forces to kill the seemingly unkillable Korpi who turns the tables in increasingly cartoonish manner. (Don't watch the trailer because it gives away almost everything.) But even after suspending disbelief from a crane atop Mt. Everest some of the scenarios really test credulity considering at the end of the first movie Korpi survives a plane crash a black box wouldn't have.
More annoyingly is that at the beginning of the pursuit the antagonists face off and while Korpi murderizes everyone else, he doesn't kill Draganov because the movie would be over. While Sisu: Road to Revenge shares the same ~90 minute runtime, it feels padded out and could've been tightened at least 15 minutes.
Tommila portrays the grieving rage of Korpi as well as he did last time with one less line of dialog than in Sisu which if you were keeping score was only one line of dialog. That's right, he doesn't say anything this time. Lang plays Draganov the way he's played everything since Avatar, meaning Quaritch with a Boris Badenov accent. While it's fun to watch the pair whose combined ages are 139 years throw down (or more likely their stuntmen), the movie works too hard to make it happen.
The 4K Dolby Vision presentation captures cinematographer Mika Orasmaa's (taking over from Kjell Lagerroos) moody widescreen vistas well. The movie is heavy on practical explosions which give the sound system a workout as well with good positional surround audio.
While Sisu: Road to Revenge is a step down from the original, fans of the original wanting more of the same should be satisfied. But for me this should be the old guy's last adventure.
Score: 6/10. Catch it on cable/streaming.
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