Everyone loves an adventure movie about a heroic underdog who kills vicious Nazis in creative and unusual ways. I know I do. Nazi killing is the secret of success for the “Indiana Jones” movies, “Inglorious Bastards,” and “Fury.”
“Sisu,” a Nordic movie, is a worthy addition to the Nazi-eradication niche of the Action movie genre. Sisu is a Finnish word roughly translated as “strength of will, determination, perseverance, and acting rationally in the face of adversity.”
The movie is a straightforward tale about a retired Finnish soldier who had served as a sniper in Finland’s winter war against the Russians. The hero, Aatami Korpi, played by Jorma Tommila, lives a solitary life mining for gold in the Lapland region of Finland.
Korpi finds a lot of gold, but unfortunately, he is discovered by Nazi soldiers retreating across Finland in the late stage of World War II. The Nazis steal Korpi’s gold and try to kill him, but he thwarts them as the movie unfolds across the tundra.
By the end of the movie, Korpi has dispatched all his Nazi adversaries and rescues a group of Finnish women whom the Nazis planned to exploit as sex slaves.
Critics have generally reviewed Sisu favorably and compared it to Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns and Quinton Tarantino’s movies. I would describe the flick as a Finnish Rambo film.
Sisu does not pretend to be a cinematic work of art. However, I found the movie satisfying as I watched it on a lazy autumn afternoon. I recommend viewing it with an ice-cold light beer and a bowl of popcorn. You can find it on Netflix.
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| No worries: The guy with a knife in his brain is a Nazi. |
