Sisu

It's a little difficult to say that there's a major flaw with super-violent, super-fun, Nazi-slaying action-comedy Sisu, but when it's something that the filmmakers make such a big deal about, it seems essential to address the error. "Sisu," as one character explains to a truckful of terrorized and very, very, very definitely doomed Nazis, is a Finnish word that represents an untranslatable concept that relates to grim determination to complete a task.

Actually, it's very easy to translate: bloody-mindedness. Aatami Korpi (Tommila) is extremely bloody-minded. You have to be bloody-minded to look for gold in the swampy, remote parts of Lapland. You have to be especially bloody-minded to dig that gold out of the muck and mire, then transport it on horseback past retreating Wehrmacht and SS soldiers, then kill those same Wehrmacht and SS when they try to steal said gold. And he is bloody-minded because he definitely has blood on his mind, killing Nazis with everything that comes to hand – whether it be his trusty pickaxe, his hunting knife, gun, land mines, random pieces of metal, or tank tracks. The important thing is that Nazis end up dead. And splattered. And decapitated. And every time, it only gets funnier.

Writer/director Jalmari Helander reunites with Tommila, who starred in his equally fun and creative Christmas classic Rare Exports, for a side- and skull-splitting romp at a very particular moment in Finnish history. The Scandinavian nation has, for most external observers, an awkward history when it comes to World War II, being allied with Nazi Germany for much of its duration as a way to fight off Soviet invasion (with most Finns unaware that, in 1939, the Germans signed a secret pact that basically handed Finland to Russia). But by 1944 the Finns and Germans were at war, with the Nazis nominally being given safe passage out while actually committing scorched-earth warfare on their way out.

That's the complicated background to Sisu, which really sets up a very simple story. Aatami's simple life is devastated after he runs into a column of Nazis, headed up by SS Obersturmführer Bruno Helldorf (Hennie, of the excellent Norwegian crime-comedy Headhunters), trundling to the border with a group of kidnapped Finnish women (led by Willamo as the steely-voiced Aino), who decide to deprive the prospector of his gold and his life. But that bloody-mindedness, that sisu, keeps him out of the grave in increasingly absurd ways. He's basically a slasher about four films into a franchise, when they can pretty much walk off being shot, stabbed, hung, whatever. But it's OK, because he's killing Nazis, not coeds.

And Tommila is a great relentless killer, carrying himself with the grim determination of a man who has survived in the grim but gorgeous backcountry of Lapland. Moreover, he has a darker backstory, one that current cinematic instincts will leap on for John Wick comparisons: But the reality is that Sisu is just tapping into the same revenge-fueled exploitation traditions as Baba Yaga himself. That said, Helander does allow himself a slight dig at the American killer franchise by comparing Aatami to another Russian folklore figure – the more apposite Koschei the Deathless.

It's those elements of cultural specificity that give Sisu an added edge, that make this particular addition to the pantheon of taciturn killers unique. And even as Aatami survives completely ridiculous and clearly life-ending assaults, the magic of bloody-mindedness keeps the action … if not plausible, then never less than hilarious and gruesome. Because, after all, there's nothing more fun than dead Nazis.