Sisu: Road to Revenge

I must admit that I’d entirely forgotten about “Sisu” (2022) until I sat down to watch this, and then it all came flooding back. Maybe that is because this isn’t so very different. He (Jorma Tommila) has returned from his native Finland to his former home in what is now Soviet occupied Karelia to collect it. Yep, he is going to dismantle the wooden home he built for his murdered family and relocate it across the border. The Soviets still remember the carnage he caused last time around, and so release his erstwhile tormentor “Dragunov” (Stephen Lang) from a gulag with instructions to terminate him and earn his freedom (and lots of roubles). What now ensues is like a militaristic game of snakes and ladders as “Sisu” faces soldiers, armoured cars, fighter planes and even a train as he tries to stay alive long enough to make it home with his logs. Now I don’t think there is even the slightest hint of jeopardy here, indeed it pretty much screams the continuining adventures of “Sisu” from the start, but it’s really good fun if you like mindless violence, a good old-fashioned baddie straight out of an Ian Fleming novel and loads of combat scenes that would easily have killed him, and just about everyone else, a hundred times over. Ever seen anyone somersault a tank? There is a bit of dialogue, but it’s entirely unnecessary as the bullets fly and the blood flows, and we build to a denouement that almost makes you cry! This production has seen considerable effort gone into it, there’s gore galore and I did quite enjoy it for ninety minutes.