Sisu (film): Delightfully gory WW2 film

I think the title kind of says a lot because you are going to need to be the kind of person that isn't turned off by, but rather, enjoys some well done gore in your films if you are going to enjoy this at all. There is a ton of gore in this but in my mind it is rather artfully done and doesn't just contain gore for the sake of having gore in it. The blood and gruesome kills in it add to the intensity and pace of the film and it is a big part of the reason why I enjoyed this movie a lot more than I thought I was going to. The fact that they were able to make this movie for less than $10 million and make it look as realistic as they did, is even more impressive to me.

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The wiki says this is a "historical action" film but I have a difficult time believing that any of this is actually true. The story takes place near the end of WW2 as the Germans are in frantic mode and are retreating on all fronts. At this point the "death squads" of the Nazis were senselessly destroying things and killing people and apparently this happened in Finland as well, which is where this is meant to have taken place.

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The story centers around a man who isn't named for quite a while in the movie, nor does he say a single word. He is described as someone who "wants nothing to do with war" and we are shown how he lives on his own in the countryside prospecting for gold. One day, he discovers quite the stash of it, retrieves it, and heads out on his horse with a his dog. He encounters some Nazis that he calmly passes and initially they leave him alone. Unfortunately for the 2nd group of Nazis he meets, they decide to NOT leave him alone.

This is where things start to become extremely fast paced and action-filled and from that point forward it never lets up. The 90 minutes of this movie pass by very quickly because there is zero downtime for the entire run of the film and while it is kind of mindless entertainment filled with a ton of rather impossible scenarios, it is exciting in a John Wick sort of way.

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Despite the fact that the lone Finnish prospector keeps picking off the Nazis who pursue him one by one, they continue to track and follow him because the German commander of the group has told the others that the war is over and they will have nothing to show for it unless they find him and take his gold. It is revealed by one of the prisoner women that the Nazis are transporting that this man they are following is a man of legend and that he is known as "The Immortal" and that during a war with the Soviets, he single-handedly acquired 300 kills despite having no backup.

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This might be where the historical part of the film may come into play because I remember hearing a story of a Finnish Commando that single-handedly held off an entire Soviet company by knowing the terrain extremely well and being an excellent marksman as a sniper. Again, this might also be false but that is perhaps where the historical aspect of this movie comes in. The actual situations that we see in the film, such as being able to stay underwater for 8 minutes in a row or something crazy like that, are a bit too absurd and super-hero like in order to actually be true.

I don't think that anyone really watches this film for realism or an account of actual history though. This is just brutal fun and the main reason why I enjoyed it was because there was never a dull moment and the cinematography was done extremely well and almost in a Quentin Tarantino type of way.

Should I watch it?

I think the only reason why anyone wouldn't enjoy this film would be if they are really turned off by gore and trust me when I say that there is a LOT of that in this movie. The squeamish out there are going to see a lot of uncomfortable things on screen and for that group this film would be better avoided. For those out there that do enjoy some mindless action with almost zero dialogue (the main character says nary a word until the last 1 minutes of the entire film) then this is going to be a really wild ride.

_{This is not on Netflix. I think you will have to go sailing in "the Bay" in order to get it online}