SISU: Road to Revenge

In SISU: Road to Revenge, the war-torn shadows of post-WWII Finland, a weathered survivor embarks on a quiet quest to reclaim the remnants of his shattered past, only to cross paths with a ruthless Soviet enforcer harboring unfinished business. What begins as a solitary journey spirals into a ferocious, high-stakes odyssey across unforgiving terrain, where unyielding grit clashes with brutal tyranny.

SISU: Road to Revenge Review

Sequelitis is a common pitfall in filmmaking: a sequel attempts to amplify everything that worked in the original—more spectacle, more jokes, more characters, more plot—only to become overstuffed, unfocused, and less effective. The result is a bigger but weaker follow-up that suffers from the law of diminishing returns. Road to Revenge does not have this problem.

                   

Instead, it actually delivers less than the original SISU—less fighting, less enjoyable villains, less overall energy. At its core, the plot is essentially the same as that of the 2023 surprise hit, Jorma Tommila’s craggy ex-soldier wants to take something of value from point A to point B, but along the way, evil soldiers intervene and bloody battles ensue.

Tommila remains the best silent actor working today, able to mutely express a depth of emotion that most of today’s assembly line performers simply cannot rival. Unfortunately, much of his emotive brilliance is neutralized by the film’s new dynamic.

In the first Sisu, even when the Nazis briefly had Korpi on the ropes, the audience always sensed that his feral, hunter-like dominance was merely idling beneath the surface — a coiled threat that gave every scene a crackling, almost gleeful anticipation of payback. In the sequel, though, the dynamic flips. For the first two-thirds, Korpi isn’t the stalker but the quarry — highly capable, yes, but still reacting rather than dictating the violence. That shift drains the film of the primal thrill the original thrived on. The set pieces still have their gory pleasures, but without Korpi’s looming, unstoppable predatory aura, they lack the spark that turned the first film from over-the-top dumb into over-the-top fun.

At least in part, the diminishment comes from a minor but noticeable lag in the pacing. There’s a deliberateness and self-awareness in the action set-piece setups that weren’t in the original, producing enough cracks in the illusion to put the lie to the film’s reality. It’s fractional, but there, and it wasn’t in the first film. SISU was cool and raw and awesome, whereas Road to Revenge feels like it’s trying to be cool and raw and awesome.

The tone for this follow-up has also shifted, and not for the better. The first had its humorous moments, though they were judiciously metered out and usually brought on by a satisfying, sudden case of schadenfreude. However, this one often gravitates toward moreTom & Jerry-like antics, attempting to shock you into laughter with over-the-top gore and goofiness.

Think the scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in which the Nazi pilot crashes his plane into a tunnel, comically passing the Jones boys in their car. It’s a great scene and works to produce a laugh, but SISU: Road to Revenge seems as though it’s built entirely on that sensibility. It even has an Acme rocket.

Yet, despite all that, Road to Revenge could have worked as an unapologetically full-throttled exaggeration had the villain been more than a superficial contrivance meant to elicit an emotional connection and then more or less forgotten about. Stephen Lang (Tombstone, the Avatar franchise) plays the Soviet soldier responsible for the death of Korpi’s family (mentioned in the original). A profoundly underrated actor, Lang’s introduction is undeniably ham-fisted, but it’s a narrative, especially an action narrative, archetype that usually works in these types of films. Regrettably, Lang is given so little to do throughout the piece that some might forget that he’s in the movie.

Having said that, writer/director Jalmari Helander doesn’t get it all wrong; Road to Revenge has some very fun moments that look great on the big screen. The Helsinki native has an undeniable eye for artistic mayhem, blending European arthouse with American muscle-car cinema in a way no one else is doing today. His action is a refreshing oasis from the monotonous paint-by-numbers junk generated by budgets that rival those of small nations. Also, even though I saw it in standard XD, I sat close enough to the D-Box seats to get a little extra oomph, which enhanced the overall experience.

While SISU: Road to Revenge was not a wholly unsatisfying bit of action fluff, sadly, it’s not worth the full ticket price. I’d suggest a matinee, but truly, I think that it’s a movie best viewed after sharing a few brews with some good buds. So, if you’ve got a dollar theater in your neighborhood (if any still exist), wait a couple of weeks and plan a night out with your bros, sobering up with some popcorn and 90 minutes of boom boom crash bang boom at half price.

WOKE REPORT

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