Remember Aatami Korpi? The grizzled, silent Finnish prospector who, in 2022’s surprise hit Sisu, turned the tables on a platoon of Nazis with little more than a pickaxe and an unbreakable will? If you thought his bloody crusade through the Lapland wilderness was the peak of cinematic carnage, then buckle up. Director Jalmari Helander is back with Sisu: Road to Revenge, a sequel that takes the dial marked ‘excessive’ and rips it clean off the console.
From Nazis to Soviets: The New Conflict
The first film was a masterclass in minimalist storytelling: a man, his gold, his dog, and a seemingly endless supply of fascists to creatively dispatch. Sisu: Road to Revenge wisely doesn’t tamper with this winning formula. It simply swaps one totalitarian regime for another. Set in the fragile peace of post-war 1945, we find Aatami (the once-again phenomenal Jorma Tommila) attempting to live a quiet life, his Nazi gold now funding a peaceful existence in a remote cabin. But peace, for men like Aatami, is a fleeting luxury.
The new antagonists are a ruthless Soviet special unit, led by the imposing Colonel Volkov (a chilling performance by a stone-faced international actor). Tasked with “securing Finnish assets” along the new border, they see Aatami’s gold not as his property, but as war reparations owed to the Motherland. In a move of spectacular foolishness, they not only take his gold but also make the fatal error of harming his beloved Bedlington Terrier. And just like that, the quiet prospector is gone, and the one-man death squad is back in business.
A Symphony of Slaughter, Dialed to Eleven
What follows is a 90-minute symphony of slaughter that makes the original look like a school play. Helander understands that the appeal of the Sisu franchise isn’t realism; it’s the sheer, unadulterated, physics-defying creativity of its violence. This is pure, crowd-pleasing action designed to make you cheer and gasp in equal measure. Forget a man surviving a hanging; in the sequel, Aatami uses a frozen Soviet soldier’s leg as a club. He turns a captured T-34 tank not just into a weapon, but into a mobile, indestructible battering ram to plough through an entire encampment. The infamous landmine scene from the first film is echoed here in a jaw-dropping sequence involving a frozen lake and a box of grenades.
Jorma Tommila: The Silent, Stoic Heart of Sisu
Tommila once again carries the film with barely a dozen lines of dialogue. His face, a roadmap of past pains and future vengeance, says more than a monologue ever could. He is less a character and more an elemental force, the embodiment of the Finnish concept of ‘sisu’ – stoic determination and guts in the face of impossible odds. He is an unstoppable force of nature who doesn’t need to explain his actions; he simply is.
Our Verdict: Is ‘Sisu: Road to Revenge’ Worth Watching?
Of course, the film isn’t trying to be a nuanced geopolitical thriller. The Russians are painted in the same broad, villainous strokes as the Nazis were. This isn’t a film about ideology; it’s a primal story of a man pushed too far, a modern-day myth forged in blood and snow. The plot is a straight line drawn with a bloody pickaxe from Point A (theft) to Point B (retribution).
Ultimately, Sisu: Road to Revenge is not a film for the faint of heart. It is loud, ludicrous, and utterly glorious in its commitment to over-the-top spectacle. It’s a shot of pure adrenaline that knows exactly what its audience wants: one legendary old man proving, once again, that you should never, ever mess with his dog or his gold. For fans of high-octane, no-nonsense action, this is an absolute must-watch. Aatami Korpi is back, and hell has followed him into the Cold War.
