An elite Finnish soldier who refuses to die attempts to transport the remains of his family’s home from Soviet-seized Karelia in Sisu: Road to Revenge, an explosive, over-the-top sequel to the 2022 breakout hit which premiered at Fantastic Fest and opens in Prague and cinemas worldwide this weekend. This live-action cartoon turns up the dial to 11 and outdoes its predecessor in the process, resulting in some of the best scenes of both action and comedy that you’ll see all year. It’s a real treat, as long as you’re in the right frame of mind.
Like the first film Sisu: Road to Revenge features a minimum of dialogue (the lead character, played by Jorma Tommila, doesn’t utter a single word) and what is spoken by the Soviet characters is entirely in English. There’s a final line in Finnish, subtitled only in Czech on Prague screens; skip to the end of this review for an English translation.
Sisu: Road to Revenge stars Tommila as Aatami Korpi, who spent the last movie single-handedly wiping out platoons of Nazis who stumbled upon him digging for gold in Lapland. Attempting to seize his stash of nuggets, the Nazis learned the hard way that this was no grizzled prospector but a Finnish Army commando and one-man death squad that the Soviet Red Army nicknamed ‘Koshchei’ (The Immortal) for his prolific exploits during the Winter War.
Aatami heads back into Soviet territory at the outset of Road to Revenge—not for revenge, but to visit his family’s former home in Karelia. During the Winter War, the Soviets killed his wife and two sons, and torched their house; they later took control of Karelia, and forced its Finnish inhabitants to relocate. Aatami’s plans? To drive a truck into Soviet territory and transport the remnants of his house—about 60 or so wooden beams—to a new plot of land and rebuild it in Finland.
But the Soviets don’t like seeing The Immortal casually trucking back into Karelia. When his passport is flagged at border control, a KGB officer (Richard Brake) sends for the one man who might be able to finally take him down: Igor Draganov (Stephen Lang), the Red Army officer who was personally responsible for the murder of Aatami’s wife and kids.
This all sounds like quite serious stuff, but you know what kind of movie you’re in for with the introduction of Lang’s character, who is chained up to a giant ball as he shuffles around a Siberian gulag. This is a live-action cartoon, even more so than the first movie, and after 10 minutes of setup Sisu: Road to Revenge gets right to the meat of the movie: a 50-minute chase through Soviet territory that evokes memories of the climax of The Road Warrior.
Tommila’s tormented Aatami is pursued by trucks, tanks, iron-helmeted bikers toting Kalashnikovs, and even fighter planes that pepper the landscape with bullets and bombs. Writer-director Jalmari Helander stages the action with the eye for detail of Sergio Leone, splicing wide establishing shots with extreme close-ups of his character’s grizzled faces, carefully framing every makeshift weapon that Aatami will employ to attack his pursuers so we follow every little action beat. Recent Hollywood action films should take note.
Sisu: Road to Revenge is not meant to be taken seriously—at one point, Aatami redirects an airplane away from his truck using the wooden beams he is transporting—but the action is so precisely orchestrated that we’re thrilled while we laugh. The film operates at the same level of logic as a Road Runner cartoon, but we can hardly fault it as it delivers every step of the way.
Improbably, Helander one-ups the extended chase scene for Sisu: Road to Revenge‘s blood-soaked climax, set about a train full of Soviet troops. Here, finally, Aatami sets his sights on the titular revenge, fighting his way from the prison car to the generals in first class with the intensity of Snowpiercer condensed into 20 minutes. Our hero goes full Wile E. Coyote here in an explosive segment lifted straight from Looney Tunes; the only thing missing is ‘Acme’ painted on the side of the rocket.
But while we can recognize, and take great pleasure in, the cartoonish nature of all the carnage throughout Sisu: Road to Revenge, there’s one key thing that separates this movie from an Iron Sky: the director takes everything completely seriously, and crafts the action with a sincerity that allows his audience to invest in it as well, no matter how ridiculous everything looks in his script.
Despite being one of the most expensive Finnish films ever made, the action in Sisu: Road to Revenge outdoes many Hollywood blockbusters that cost more than 10 times its budget, and employs a great many practical effects to wonderful use. Beyond that, the film looks great, with crisp cinematography by Mika Orasmaa topping the oversaturated visuals of the first film; even the lighting here, which carefully frames every character or object in relation to their surroundings, is in stark contrast to the flat, soft look often lamented in modern cinema.
An audacious, unrelenting thrill ride that fully embraces its own absurdity, Sisu: Road to Revenge combines jaw-dropping stunts, meticulous practical effects, and cartoonish logic with a surprising emotional core, anchored by Tommila’s stoic performance. It’s a film that delivers spectacle, humor, and ingenuity in equal measure—proof that Finnish cinema can rival Hollywood in both scale and ambition.
For English speakers catching the film without subtitles, the final Finnish line is something like: “Tell us if you’d like some help…[pause]…you don’t have to say anything.”
