Sisu

  Sisu is a bloody, exhilarating wartime tall tale/bit of Finnish swagger that pits a bunch of very naughty Nazis against an old prospector who represents the titular 'sisu' - a Finnish word that is said to be untranslatable but basically seems to mean 'grit'.

 Set near the end of World War 2, the Nazis are rampaging across Lapland, destroying and killing everything they come across. But before we get to them we first spend a day or so in the life of one Aatami Korpi (Helander movie regular Jorma Tommila), our near silent badass protagonist, as he carefully digs up a huge seam of gold.
 For a raucous, bloody, nazi-killing genre exercise, Sisu shows a lot of restraint. The movie is divided into chapters, and it quietly bides its time until shit hits the fan. The Nazi platoon is introduced in chapter two, with no time is wasted in establishing they're more despicable than usual: their short convoy includes a truck full of captive Finnish women, their purpose made immediately obvious. There's also a Panzer, another truck full of soldiers, and a bike with a sidecar. Maybe a couple dozen Nazis in all.

 Aatami soon crosses paths with them, in a tense scene where they shake him down. Their dastardly leader Bruno (Aksel Hennie) ultimately decides to let him go, knowing that another group of Nazis bringing up the rear will kill him off soon enough.
 And he does meet the other group of Nazis, and they do try to kill him. But Aatami proves he's not only hard to kill, but also that he's a fucking knife wizard and an expert in all sorts of violence; He easily dispatches his assailants in gruesome fashion and runs off into the wilderness.

 Meanwhile, the main platoon hears the distant gunshots as their compatriots are killed, and double back. Discovering evidence that the prospector is carrying a bag full of gold nuggets among the carnage, they decide to hunt him down for revenge and profit. This sets off a brutal running battle throughout a big, war-torn chunk of Lapland, full of tense setpieces and lots of darkly humorous deaths.

 It's a weird action movie - Mr. Sisu is basically invulnerable; he might get hurt or suffer setbacks, but he'll just get up and carry on. This isn't too different from most action heroes, but here there's no real attempt to make the action even mildly plausible. The guy's got more in common with Paul Bunyan than John Wick; he's a force of nature, a fascist-targeting slasher movie menace, and there's never any doubt as to what the end result is going to be.
 But the action scenes are varied, brutal and thrilling, and there are enough unexpected developments that make the movie ridiculously entertaining even if its destination is clear from the moment knife first meets head.

 So yes, there's a near-contempt for suspension of disbelief throughout, and the mythical levels of badassness help even the most implausible of the stunts that Aatami pulls elicit something between a cheer and a laugh. There's some memorably over the top stuff here.
 All the action itself is somehow less... explicit than on other modern Hong-Kong-influenced action films. What's happening is always clear, but there's more of a focus on storytelling and stunts than on the procedural details of who does what to whom at every turn; The movie feels a little old-school in that respect. This makes a climactic extended hand-to-hand brawl drag a little compared to other modern, more martial-arts influenced movies; but the more frequent shootouts and shorted brawls fare a lot better.
 The way the fights are shot reminded me a little of the overblown stylization of Snyder's work, paying a lot of attention to iconic-looking imagery- applied to better material, of course. The cinematography is beautiful throughout (DP: Kjell Lagerroos, who also did the pretty good wintry war movie Ambush 1941), and writer/director Jalmari Helander provides him plenty of opportunities to show off in. The barren, wide-open spaces of Lapland's beautiful autumnal landscapes do a lot of heavy puling.

 It's a weird, bleak bit of heightened yet minimalist mayhem, gory as hell and full of pitch-black humor, memorable scenes and scenery, gleeful absurdity and badass moves. Mark me down as a fan.