Sisu

Quirky is an understatement.

I spent a bit of time deliberating of this one. Did I like it, yes or no, was it any good yes or no?

In the end I fell on the positive side to the scales.

I was entertained (eventually) which I guess it the aim of the game.

It took a while to get there though.

I ws taking the film a little too seriously at first so I was finding the movie frustrating, once I changed my approach to the movie and took it for the absurdity that it is then I started to enjoy it.

So the first half of the movie is a bit of a dud but the second half I felt was much better and had some slightly classic scenes :)

This was a pleasant surprise! We have Tarantino-inspired bloody action, silent and very charismatic protagonist, beautiful imaginery from actual locations in Lapland, really good soundtrack and some innovative fighting and survival scenes, and of course Finnish Sisu.

Jorma Tommila as the leading man does a phenomenal job. He has only one line in the whole movie (an instant classic), but he is acting very well just by using his face and body.

"He is not immortal, he just refuses to die."

Congratulations for the writer/director Jalmari Helander, the movie looks really good, flows forward easily and is overall very cool and original, despite the overused tropes of evil nazis and action. With just 6 million budget this looks much bigger.

Some nitpicks: the nazis speak English, even when talking with each other, which is kind of weird. But it makes sense for scenes with some Finns.

I really hope this gets much views all over the world.

Don't take the movie or events too seriously, just enjoy the ride :)

Sisu is about a gold miner who finds the richest of golds in an underground pit. He must trade the gold for cash to a bank. Although, he lives thousands of miles away from a bank and must travel on foot. On the way there, he encounters German Nazis along the way who want to steal it from him. He must fight throughout all of them in order to deposit his gold.

The first impressions of Sisu gave me that it was a bloody, fun, and good time of a gold miner killing Nazis. Since John Wick was heavily inspired by director, Jalmari Helander, that this movie is basically the German 1940's war version of John Wick. Jorma Tommila's (main protagonist) acting skills were badass from his creative surviving skills to kill the Nazis. The deaths were entertaining with the special effects and CGI of them. Overall, Sisu is good with its acting, kills, and story. I would recommend Sisu in theaters for a good action watch.

Except for some scenes, ridiculous hollywood imitations that are completely disconnected from reality, et cetera, et cetera.. This is not a comedy model, not an action model, not a war model...The Finns should also be the ones who give high marks.. A man is bleeding violently , he is covered with deep cuts everywhere, a rope is passed around his neck and he is hanged, he comes out alive hours later, the plane falls to the ground, our grandfather is alive again... The person who wrote this script has never researched how long a person who is executed survives, how long he stays under the water the longest, does he not know that the probability of surviving a crashed plane is one in a million... Again, I respect labor, I give 5 points.

Sisu is a complicated concept. In a way it is pure stoic perseverance in the face of overwhelming odds, but it is important to note that it is not just determination. It is also cleverness, that manifests itself when you most need it. Sisu is finding the solution to a problem, no matter what. This movie is definitely about that. Aatami, our "hero", finds the way.

Being old enough Finn to have known many people of this generation, this isn't even that much of an embellishment.

The movie is quite simplistic. The Finnish characters don't even talk until very late into the movie (which is actually another insight into Finnish culture). You have a goldminer with gold and a company of Nazis hunting him. You can't really go wrong with this storywise. You just have to make the characters and the action interesting enough. Do they? Yes. This might me kind of mild in the age of superhero movies and the more traditional action movies copying the superhero movies, but it works. In some ways kind of refreshing to keep it all more grounded.

While this might be more meaningful to me as a Finn, I would assume that if you enjoy mid-budget action, this will be right up your alley (although, at 6 million euros, the budget was much lower than what would be considered midlevel in bigger markets).