The action film Sisu shocked audiences in 2022 when they watched Aatami (Jorma Tommila) barely speak but use his skills to take out a bunch of Nazis during World War II. But what happens when he’s faced with returning home to his past with the Soviet Union breathing down his neck?
The Jalmari Helander sequel, Sisu: Road to Revenge, asks the question: How can we make Aatami speak even less than in the first film and yet make him more badass? And the film succeeds on multiple levels. Aatami is going back to his home to see what is left of his house. He decides to take down the wood that once kept his family safe to rebuild in the newly minted Finland.
What he quickly realizes is that revenge is not just his to have. Igor Draganov (Stephen Lang) is a man who has one mission: Stop Aatami. His own shared past with Aatami means that the two have a shared revenge against each other and the two are angry, vicious, and will stop at nothing to end each other. And if you saw the first Sisu film, you know that if Aatami is coming for someone, it is going to get violent.
Sisu was really about a man with superhuman strength going to town on bad guys. Did you want to see a man shoot a Nazis head off? Then watch Sisu. What really works about Road to Revenge is the mix of both Igor and Aatami seeking their own revenge against each other. To be fair, Aatami didn’t start this journey that way. He just wanted to rebuild his life and home. But getting to see how these two men handle their own pain and anger is fascinating.
Let Aatami rebuild!
The crux of the film is based on Aatami taking down his home and rebuilding in the new Finland. But those chasing him is very clearly not making this easy. But it is a great choice to make a lot of the effort that Aatami is going through is for his home. When the violence gets crazy, we get to come back to the groundedness of the wood from his former home and it really makes the weight of what is happening to Aatami that much greater.
So if you’re going into Sisu: Road to Revenge and wanting more of the action of the first, you will not be disappointed and I do think that this ups the anti in a great way. But what really worked for me was the film’s ability to bring weight to Aatami’s journey.
(featured image: Sony Pictures)
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