With a stronger villain and more absurd set pieces, Sisu: Road to Revenge delivers the exploitation thrills.
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It's kinda funny to me that Sisu got a sequel. Not because I'm opposed to the idea. I was a giant fan of the original film and its exploitation approach to Nazi-killing. But because the original film wasn't exactly a box office juggernaut. But it seems team Sisu both felt they have another story worth telling and got enough of a return on their modest budget to give it another go. And the end result is...almost as fun as the first one.
The Setup
In the midst of the Soviet takeover of the Karelia territory at the end of WWII, former Finnish commando Aatami Korpi travels to the new Soviet territory to reclaim his family home. Literally. Now carrying the wood that made his family home in a truck, Korpi looks to rebuild the ruins in Finland. Just one problem. The man who killed Korpi's family has been tasked by the Russian military with capturing the Finnish legend by any means necessary...
The main question I had about a Sisu sequel was...who the hell does Korpi fight now? Because the last movie ended with our aging bad-ass killing every Nazi in his way and cashing in his gold find, so would motivate this man to keep fighting? And as you might've pieced together, the movie figures out a nice two prong approach.
The first is to give Korpi another treasure that he's looking to protect. But while that treasure is what puts him on Nazi radar in the first film, and justifies their relentless pursuit of him, this time around his cargo is a restriction. It's a giant truckful of wood he's desperate to not only keep but also prevent anyone from destroying.
On the villain end, the man in pursuit of Korpi is an equally motivated and bad-ass Soviet, Stephen Lang's Igor Draganov who needs to capture Korpi to escape a Siberian gulag (where he's likely been living due to war crimes). But he's also the man who killed Korpi's family, so it means once our hero finds that out, he's going to do everything he can to kill him.
This also leans into the legend that the movie explained in the last film which is that Draganov killed Korpi's family and Korpi went on to single-handedly kill 300 Russians. Kind of a "it started because of him, it'll end with him" kind of approach.
And that's just enough runway to justify the franchise's over-the-top approach to action with a few new wrinkles.
Wrinkle #1: Kind Of A Mad Max Movie
The majority of this movie is basically an extended chase sequence where Korpi fends off waves of Russian attackers trying to board or blow up his truck. All of which has a very Mad Max feel both in terms of visual style, and also with the mixture of hand to hand combat, gun play and explosions.
So we move from soldiers in regular trucks, to armored soldiers on bikes and beyond until eventually Korpi is trying to face down down fighter jets and bombers with a truck full of wood and his will.
Even once we get beyond the initial stretch, almost every sequence is vehicle based and features at least one or two ludicrous action payoffs or kills to highlight Korpi's ingenuity or force of will.
Wrinkle #2: A More Direct Sense of Humor
I raved about the last movie for it's somewhat dry or indirect sense of humor. Like how it plays Nazi's getting blown up for laughs, or walks each villain into a comically misunderstanding of the situation before Korpi kills them.
This time around they're removing any semblance of subtlety with these feckless Russian soldiers because the brunt of the joke with a blood finisher as the punchline. See a guy who avoids two motorcycles running him over...only to be demolished and turned into paste by a truck.
Wrinkle #3: More Absurd, In A Fun Way
This movie had the most 80s action movie vibe I've seen in a long time, not just because its lead character is a bad-ass who cannot be killed, who literally spits out a bullet at one point, but also because he's portrayed as a force of nature who can easily overwhelm a platoon, even if he was looking to avoid a man vs. army situation.
Aka, we've generally moved away from our action heroes covering themselves in war paint and dual-wielding machine guns, but this one brings that attitude back in a big gleefully silly way. Arguably too silly in spots, but I was on board.
One Nit Pick: More Obvious Effects Work
I want to be clear that the shakiness in the effects work here is likely due to budget. Because neither of Sisu movies were made for very much money, and thus put more of their emphasis on practical effects or physical vehicles with some CGI blended in.
Road to Revenge however, has a lot more segments where you either scrap it or make it with effects that aren't always as convincing as I'd prefer. This, even more that its approach to violence, is what makes the movie feel more cartoonish than its predecessor, often in dramatic moments or in the midst of payoffs in the set pieces. Far from a deal breaker, but it does make the movie feel much more like a B-movie than its predecssor.
The Verdict: More Over-The-Top Fun
With a stronger villain and more absurd set pieces, Sisu: Road to Revenge delivers the exploitation thrills. 7/10
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