There is only one immutable law in the universe. No, it’s not any of that Isaac Newton stuff. It’s “The Bugs Bunny Law,” and it goes like this: If you annoy Bugs Bunny, he is allowed to do anything in pursuit of revenge. He can blow you up with dynamite. He can speed up or slow down time. He can become a literal god and existentially annihilate you. And these are just the types of things he does when you prevent him from getting a good night’s sleep.
So, with that in mind, I invite you to imagine what Bugs Bunny would do if you murdered his whole family.
That’s the premise of “Sisu: Road to Revenge,” the sequel to Jalmari Helander’s electrifying and inspiring 2022 action thriller. The original “Sisu” starred Jorma Tommila as Aatami, a silent prospector in the waning days of World War II. The Nazis try to steal his gold while they’re fleeing Finland, so Aatami spends 85 minutes killing Nazis while proving he, himself, is unkillable. It’s one of the most gleefully violent and satisfyingly antifascist films in decades. If you haven’t seen “Sisu,” stop reading this and go see “Sisu.” You can thank me when you come back.
In the sequel — oh, you’re welcome by the way — World War II is over, and Soviet Russia has taken over a huge slice of Finnish territory. 422,000 Finns were evacuated, but Aatami is going in the opposite direction, to take his family home, disassemble it and truck it back to Finland. The “road” part in “Sisu: Road to Revenge” is literal. So is the “revenge” part. (“Sisu” is a concept, however; it means determination against impossible odds, stalwart bravery and a bunch of other qualities that come with being a badass.)
The Soviets find out Aatami is back in the U.S.S.R., and they don’t know how unlucky they are. Aatami became a war hero by killing a whole bunch of Russians after his family was murdered by (you guessed it) Russians, so they want him dead too. If only to save face. They send the man who killed Aatami’s family, Igor Draganov (Stephen Lang), to stop him at all costs. And it will, of course, cost a lot of Soviet lives.
“Sisu: Road to Revenge” owes a lot to the “Mad Max” movies. It’s another grungy protracted road race where the silent hero will do anything to keep on truckin’. There are specific shots that reference “The Road Warrior” and the truck chase from “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” That, or there are only so many ways you can film a bunch of goons trying to kill a truck driver so there was bound to be some overlap. It’s probably a little of Column A and a little of Column B.
But whereas the recent “Mad Max” movies were committed to raising the stakes and amplifying the spectacle, “Sisu: Road to Revenge” sticks to the grit. It’s not a tiny production but it’s a modest one, and with that modesty comes innovation. It’s hard for a 66-year-old man with nothing but a pickup truck full of logs to fight off Soviet fighter jets, but by god, that’s exactly what Aatami does. Some of his strategies make brilliant sense. The last one is a Looney Tunes move. Just imagine the Road Runner is driving the truck and Wile E. Coyote is in the plane and you’ll see what I mean.
Jalmari Helander has been one of the best and most consistent genre filmmakers for 15 years, not that most people stateside have noticed. His Christmas horror movie “Rare Exports” is a cult classic, but his deliriously fun follow-up “Big Game” — about a 13-year-old boy protecting the American president, played by Samuel L. Jackson, from terrorists — was tragically ignored. Thank god “Sisu” got big enough to justify a sequel, although after killing Nazis in the original movie “Road to Revenge” does feel a bit like de-escalation.
Stephen Lang plays, in some respects, the anti-Aatami. The Sabretooth to his Wolverine. The Negaduck to his Darkwing Duck. The Kromags to his Sliders. Lang has already played an old unstoppable killing machine multiple times, although he’s usually the villain. He’s the villain “Sisu: Road to Revenge” needs to stand out against the original. A guy whose last name might as well be “This time it’s personal.” And yet Lang’s performance is oddly inconsistent, since in the third act he suddenly turns quiet-voiced, even professorial, as opposed to the guy who half-an-hour ago growled, “Unleash Hell.”
“Road to Revenge” is everything you could want from a rough-and-tumble, tough-as-nails action movie. “Sisu” was even more of it, but only by a matter of degrees. This is devilishly crafted kick butt cinema, politically simplistic but ethically on point, the kind of badass shoot-‘em-up punch-‘em-up that made superstars out of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. How fitting that Helander’s making a prequel to “Rambo,” since he knows just how to take this genre back to basics, and how to make a furious statement while doing it.
