At first glance, “Sisu: Road To Revenge” seems like a sequel based on formula F, in which one group of villains has simply been replaced by another: After single-handedly slicing his way through entire hordes of Nazi henchmen in “Sisu,” the spry loner Aatami (Jorma Tommila) has to deal with Soviet soldiers this time. But this impression is misleading. After author and director Jalmari Helander unleashed his much more brutal and less mythologically based version of “John Wick” on the audience in part 1, he has now basically shot his version of “Mad Max: Fury Road” with the sequel (as already hinted at in the subtitle “Road To Revenge”).
“Sisu: Road To Revenge” doesn’t come close to the incomparable adrenaline rush of George Miller’s action milestone. However, Helander's sequel impresses with a wonderfully hateable villain, excellent, handmade action scenes and tons of “They're not really doing that!” moments.
Aatami (Jorma Tommila) is back – and this time she's behind the wheel of a truck.
After the end of the Second World War, Finland was forced to cede numerous territories to the Soviet Union – including the patch of land where Aatami once lived with his family before they were murdered by the Soviets. So he drives a truck across the border to take his house apart, wooden beam by wooden beam, load it and rebuild it somewhere else.
But of course this doesn't go unnoticed, which is why a KGB officer (Richard Brake) releases the man from a Siberian prison who once killed Aatami's wife and children: Yeagor Dragunov (Stephen Lang). After Aatami easily eliminates the first soldiers who oppose him, Dragunov soon moves heaven and earth to eliminate his adversary while he desperately tries to get to the Finnish border in his truck loaded with wooden beams…
“Mad Max: Fury Road” sends greetings
The above synopsis already hints at it: “Sisu: Road To Revenge” is essentially a road movie for long stretches, albeit one that is repeatedly interrupted by wild shootings and huge explosions. After a quiet, almost wordless and surprisingly emotional opening in Aatami's old house, all hell breaks loose in the second of the film's seven chapters – and “Sisu: Road To Revenge” remains in constant motion from then on, with only a few short breaks in between.
In addition to a few smaller allusions and image quotations, this is perhaps the clearest parallel to “Mad Max: Fury Road”, which was ultimately also “just” about a truck being chased by numerous pursuers – even if, unlike Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron, Aatami is only behind the wheel accompanied by his dog (which, however, hardly plays a role in the film). In addition, like the obvious role model, Jalmari Helander turns the action madness dial higher and higher with each passing minute:
In the second chapter, a Soviet soldier is trapped under the wheels of Aatami's truck and then thrown through the windshield of a pursuing car as it drives off. In Chapter 3 there is a wild chase with motorcycles in which heads are torn off and two soldiers are crushed in fountains of blood. The fact that Helander loses track here and there during this chase and doesn't quite come close to the kinetic force of “Fury Road” is forgiven with the next of many successful gags – for example when Dragunov nonchalantly cleans his car, which is decorated with the remains of a soldier, with the windshield wiper.
“Sisu: Road To Revenge” is pure action madness!
In any case, “Sisu: Road To Revenge” is a slightly more fun film than “Sisu”, although it was already full of excessively brutal gags. The sequel is far from a comedy, but the kills and crazy ideas still brought loud cheers and plenty of hilarity at our press screening. For example, when Aatami uses his wooden beams as a shield against a crashing plane in Chapter 4 or even surpasses the iconic truck flip from “The Dark Knight” in terms of insanity in Chapter 5 (keyword: tank flip).
All of this is then overshadowed by the complete action excess of the sixth chapter, in which not only the means of transport is changed and Aatami finally mutates into the unstoppable god of revenge, but in which things are even crazier, bloodier and often funnier than before. We don't want to reveal more at this point, so just this: A knife has probably never been hidden in such a creative and at the same time painful way as in “Sisu: Road To Revenge”!
Yeagor Dragunov (Stephen Lang) is a worthy opponent for Aatami.
In addition to all the action madness, two other strengths of “Sisu: Road To Revenge” should not go unmentioned: Stephen Lang, who will also be seen as a villain in “Avatar 3: Fire And Ash” later in 2025, plays his Yeagor Dragunov as a really despicable psychopath with (in the original version) a pleasurably exaggerated Russian accent, the Aatami in matters callousness is more than equal.
And the film music by Juri Seppä and Tuomas Wäinölä, who were also responsible for “Sisu”, is also excellent. The score by the Finnish composer duo is sometimes reminiscent of Ennio Morricone, sometimes it drives the action scenes with a hard heavy metal sound and also soars again and again to epic orchestral sounds that give many moments a surprising emotionality.
Conclusion: With his ultra-brutal version of “Mad Max: Fury Road”, director Jalmari Helander has managed to create a possibly even more entertaining sequel to the already very good “Sisu”.