Review: Sisu

Sisu
Cert: 15 / 88 mins / Dir. Jalmari Helander / Trailer

Set in 1944, we follow retired Finnish commando turned gold prospector Aatami Korpi (Jormila Tommila) who, having lost his home and family in the conflict, roams Lapland as a gold prospector with his horse and his dog. Upon finding a deposit of the yellow stuff which might return his life to some level of stability, his journey back to civilisation is interrupted when he encounters a beaten and bitter Wermacht platoon passing the other way. When the nazis take Aatami's prize, kill his horse, drive away his dog and leave him hanging from a signpost, they soon find out that this man has something of a reputation for refusing to die. A very persistent and incredibly violent reputation...

So, Jalmari Helander's wartime revenge-romp opens with an achingly cool yellow-on-black title card bearing the name SISU, and explaining that this is a Finnish word which is untranslatable. The exact same title card then proceeds to describe what the word means in English. Therefore translating it. Sisu is a Person Who Doesn't Watch Movies' idea of a cool movie.

CENTRAL

The idea itself is perfectly sound of course, and there are many things to like about this. There just aren't any to love. Jormila Tommila's performance in the central role is incredibly strong, not least because he only has two lines of dialogue in the entire movie so he's doing everything through emoting and physicality. The viewer does feel Aatami's pain and anguish at every turn because of this, and because of the outstanding effects-work when it comes to sound design, pyrotechnics and prosthetics (namely wounds; their infliction and 'repair').

Similarly, Kjell Lagerroos's cinematography is superb, whether it's relaying the vast bleakness of the wartorn landscape without resorting to simple desaturation, or capturing the claustrophobia of close-quarters conspiracy and combat. Juri Seppä and Tuomas Wäinölä's score is darkly stirring throughout, even if it tips its hat to Ennio Morricone perhaps too overtly in places.

GRANADA

But in fact, the problem here is that the storyline is linear and its script is dire. There's only one central character but since he doesn't say anything, all non-visual exposition has to be read by beleaguered supporting players imagining they're in a snappier movie. The nazis and their handful of captives are placeholder characters, sketched into the first draft and then never updated.

Despite leaning heavily on Aatami's legendary past, there are no flashbacks - so Tommila acts purely in the present. His backstory therefore, is only fleshed out via the dialogue of everyone else, and that dialogue is so ham-fistedly clichéd as to make this more an implication than any sort of convincing description. It's an award-winning example of why Show, Don't Tell is so important in screenwriting.

It's also, frankly, a pretty lazy setup for an entire movie with only one plot-strand. The audience root for Aatami because he's up against nazis (fair enough, admittedly), but before long the only thing he's trying to keep hold of is the gold. And remember, Aatami's only found that at the beginning of the film. He hasn't actually earned this vast wealth other than digging a hole. Anyone could have dug that hole, it wouldn't automatically make them a hero. And so in order to crowbar this moral juxtaposition even wider, the bad guys have to become cartoon-versions of a thing which was deplorable enough to start with. The screenplay doesn't have the cojones to kill the dog, though*¹.

RADIO RENTALS

In its simplest terms, this is what happens when someone puts Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained into the matter-transporter at the same time and hopes no-one will notice. If 2018's Bad Times At The El Royale was a love-letter to Tarantino, Sisu is blatant, straight-up QT fanfic that takes Style Over Substance to dizzying new levels.

If this was an American production, Liam Neeson would be in it.

The film looks gorgeous and should be fantastic, but ultimately Sisu is one yellow £3 sticker away from being on the Gifts For Father's Day end-of-aisle display in a supermarket next to the John Smith's 12-packs. Where it belongs.

*¹ Okay, I'll bite: How come the dog's back for the final scene, then? The dog which was last seen in a wilderness scrubland literally hundreds of miles and one exploded cargo-plane ago? I know that precisely nothing else in this movie had made practical sense up until that point, but help me out here... ^{[ BACK ]}

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
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