I love a good action movie. There’s nothing quite like the satisfaction of watching a rugged, unwilling hero take on hordes of countless, faceless goons in a quest for righteous vengeance. Following the success of the John Wick franchise (and, heck, the Taken franchise if we want to go back further), it seems like every studio in Hollywood decided that the ideal heroic figure is a man in his 50s to 60s, giving us fun yet formulaic middle-aged power fantasies like Love Hurts, The Beekeeper, and Nobody.
However, just when the well seemed to have been tapped out, and writers’ rooms ran out of ways to sell us stories of seemingly peaceful old men forcibly dragged back into their violent ways, 2025 treated us to Nobody 2 and, most recently, Sisu: Road to Revenge.
Don’t get me wrong, I love this kind of movie. I own the first Nobody and Sisu movies on Blu-ray and rewatch them when I’m in the mood for a good ol’ mindless revenge fantasy. And while I was unaware that a second Sisu film was coming out until right before it hit theatres, I was excited that director Jalmari Helander was serving up some more gloriously gory action.
If you’ve seen the first film, Sisu: Road to Revenge, it is more or less precisely what you’d expect, just substitute the Nazis for Soviet soldiers. The sequel picks up in 1946, two years after the first film. In the wake of World War II, part of Finland was ceded to Russia, including the home of our silent, scowling protagonist, Aatami Korpi (Jorma Tommila). Joined by his trusty dog and one of the most indestructible trucks in film history, the former commando and nigh-unkillable murder machine is once again trying his best to live a simple, peaceful life until someone Fs around and finds out just how far Korpi will go to get some damn peace and quiet.
The first Sisu’s plot stood out among all the other “unassuming mild-mannered, middle-aged man is actually a secret murdering badass” films in that, instead of Korpi seeking revenge for a loved one, the man just wanted to cash in at the bank, a feeling that many of us modern wage slaves can relate to. Unfortunately, takes a step backward plot-wise, this time centering around Korpi getting revenge on the man who killed his family, Yeagor Dragunov (Stephen Lang).
The film opens with Korpi crossing a Soviet checkpoint back to his former home, where he dismantles his house and loads it onto a truck to rebuild on Finnish land. When the Soviet government gets wind of this, they decide to punish Korpi for slaughtering their troops in revenge for his family’s killing by sending Dragunov (the man who kick-started Korpi’s rage in the first place) after him to clean up the mess he created, finally. It’s a convoluted knot of revenge.
This plot lends some humanity to Korpi and offers a brief glimpse into his history, but it ultimately feels misguided. It gives Tommila opportunities to portray emotions beyond seething rage and bloodlust, but this is a storyline we’ve seen a thousand times before. While the “transport the wooden planks from my old home to my new home” aspect is unique, it’s undercut by the revenge cliche. We need a reason for Korpi to go on his justified killing spree, but this route feels disappointingly safe.
This isn’t a dig at Tommila’s performance. The brief moments where Tomilla can express the grief, sadness and loneliness that Korpi feels are powerful and effective. Though he actually speaks even less than in the previous film, Tommila expertly conveys Korpi’s thoughts and intentions through his facial expressions and body language. Without uttering a single word, he’s able to wrench our hearts and tell us why our hero is so sullen and unhappy, or just how he’s planning to ruin a guy’s day with a tow hook. This isn’t by any means to say that Korpi is any less bloodthirsty than before. He’s still a one-man army that can take any punch, bullet or explosion you throw at him, and if anything, it’s almost a little more horrifying to contrast the grieving father with the guiltless weapon of war and revenge. If anything, the quieter moments of the film illustrate that, beneath his seemingly indestructible exterior, Korpi is still just a man who wants to leave the violence behind him.
While Tommila carries the film on his grunts and glares, Stephen Lang is disappointingly bland and underutilized as the villain. Lang is by no means a bad actor, and we’ve seen how charismatic and chilling he can be in films like Avatar and Don’t Breathe; his work here lacks consistency and menace. In the previous movie, Aksel Hennie and Jack Doolan delivered wonderfully detestable, physically imposing performances as the primary Nazi antagonists, matching Tommila’s intensity. Lang never manages to reach any level of intimidation, and the only real disturbing or villainous detail we get about him is that he has killed so many women and children in brutal ways that he almost doesn’t remember who Korpi’s family was. I absolutely wanted Dragunov to meet a deservedly sadistic end, but he never invoked the sense of indignant rage in me that a great villain should.
Even more egregious is his inability to maintain an Eastern European accent, which comes and goes. At times, Lang speaks with the proud, hard edge of a soldier, and at others, he drones in a sort of frail, old man whisper that only serves to do the exact opposite of aura farming, instead diminishing his credibility as a threat to Korpi. When the two men finally clash in the film’s climax, it plays more like a mild, slightly stabby quarrel than an epic struggle. It’s disappointing, especially in contrast with the many scenes of Korpi laying waste to a host of enemies. Both Lang’s acting talents and the character seem wasted here, and director Jalmari Helander may have followed his initial idea and cast a younger actor to play the villain.
But let’s not kid ourselves. The reason anyone goes to see a Sisu movie is the gloriously gory kills.
No need to worry, on that front, Road to Revenge absolutely delivers. Like its predecessor, the film has plenty of moments of creative violence and dreams up new ways to push its hero to his physical limits and provide him with satisfyingly depraved ways to get even. I don’t want to spoil any of the fun, but if all you want is some gloriously gory and mindless action sequences, then this will absolutely scratch that itch.
Unfortunately, Sisu: Road to Revenge quite literally jumps the shark. The first film had its moments that tested the limits of plausibility, but for the most part, it stayed grounded in realism without sacrificing creativity. The same cannot be said for this sequel, which featured many moments that had me laughing in disbelief, but not in the good way. It feels nitpicky to call out a lack of realism in a film centered on over-the-top action and gore, but it suggests Helander was struggling to live up to the expectations set by his previous film. For the most part, he succeeds, but there are a few key scenes where he does not weigh the film down.
All in all, Sisu: Road to Revenge doesn’t quite live up to the expectations set by its predecessor, but it’s still an entertaining and joyously macabre thrill ride. Though the plot feels somewhat typical and generic, Jorma Tommila is once again engaging to see as Aatami Korpi, the grim and gruesome commando of few words and less patience. Stephen Lang is lacklustre as the primary antagonist, and some of the action sequences are cool visuals that take things a bit too far over the top, as long as you can turn your brain off and not think like a movie critic; neither of these points entirely derails the film.
Rating: 6/10