Sisu: Road to Revenge Review
The man who refuses to die is back.
Jorma Tommila in Sisu: Road to Revenge. Courtesy of Sony Pictures
Writer-director Jalmari Helander released the explosive action film Sisu in 2022. The Finnish film starred Jorma Tommila as a retired Finnish soldier Aatami Korpi, famous for singlehandedly killing hundreds of men. Set during the Lapland War toward the end of WWII, Korpi is forced to take on a platoon of Nazis trying to steal the gold he found in the wilderness. The movie delivered over-the-top action, refreshing in its violence and execution. It was a blast in the theater, and the sequel doesn’t disappoint.
In Road to Revenge, our hero Korpi (Jorma Tommila) travels into Soviet-occupied Karelia, to his old home where his family was murdered during the war. He dismantles the house, carefully labels the beams, and loads them onto his truck to rebuild it on safe Finnish territory. When the Soviets learn of his presence, the Red Army sends Igor Dragonov (Stephen Lang), the commander who killed Korpi’s family, to hunt him down and kill him.
Stephen Lang in Sisu: Road to Revenge. Courtesy of Sony Pictures
Tommila plays Korpi as the ultimate strong, silent type, literally; he never speaks a word the entire runtime. The hero is strong, clever, and unstoppable, but put through the wringer in Die Hard style. The movie never shies from showing us these injuries and his teeth-gritting reaction. Unlike the hero, Stephen Lang’s Dragonov has dialogue, delivered in English with a vaguely Russian accent. His performance was fine, but I wanted him to talk less. It would have been truly incredible for Helander to completely commit to having no dialogue in the movie.
The star of the show is the action. Road to Revenge constantly tops itself with each setpiece. It gets to bonkers Looney Tunes level insanity, just with a lot more blood. Clever gags during these scenes occasionally drew laughter from the audience and ensured the movie wasn’t all tension all the time. Genre fans will spot a little bit of Indiana Jones and a lot of Mad Max: Fury Road in this movie’s DNA. The special effects sell the action, as outlandish as it is.
Jorma Tommila in Sisu: Road to Revenge. Courtesy of Sony Pictures
Sisu: Road to Revenge is a perfect follow-up to the original film. It’s not a sequel that we needed, but I’m glad that we got it. It’s great to have another hardcore action film that doesn’t take itself as seriously as some of our contemporary franchises do. Sometimes, you just have to stylishly blow a lot of shit up at a good clip and call it a day.
Sisu: Road to Revenge opens in theaters on November 21, 2025.
