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Sisu | The Art of Killing Nazis with Style

Writer's picture: Nicolas SchueleNicolas Schuele
4
4/5

They say revenge is a dish best served cold, but in "Sisu (2022)," it’s served boiling hot with a side of Nazi entrails. From the moment the grizzled prospector, Aatami Korpi, saunters onto the screen with his pickaxe and gold nuggets, you just know the carnage is about to go full throttle. I came to quench my thirst for a violent bloodbath, and Sisu delivered so hard I’m still picking shrapnel out of my popcorn.


Sisu

The Saint of Killers Reborn


If you’ve spent any time with Preacher comics or its TV adaptation, you’ll instantly clock Aatami as the Saint of Killers' long-lost Scandinavian cousin. A man of few words, gruff, invincible, and utterly unrelenting, Korpi wields his pickaxe-yessiree, a pickaxe-like it's an extension of his soul, dispatching Nazis with a level of efficiency that borders on artistic. The man has no time for dialogue or emotional baggage, just a single-minded mission of vengeance and gold recovery, and honestly, who needs more? He's the kind of character who makes one think Finland missed its chance for a Western antihero franchise.


Grit, Gore, and Gorgeous Shots


The camerawork in Sisu is raw, gritty, and stylish, from wide panoramic shots of barren Finnish landscapes down to close-ups of heads exploding-it's a visual treat that keeps your eyes nailed to the carnage. Some of the kill shots are so stunning they deserve a rewind just to admire the creativity. Yes, it's absurd to watch Nazis meet their ends in increasingly gruesome ways, but that's the point. Forget deep storytelling—this is a film about finding the most cinematic way to spill guts on screen. Mission accomplished.


Nazis: The Ultimate Disposable Villains


Let's get real: there's just something uniquely satisfying about Nazi-mowing in a movie. They're the perfect bad guys because they don't evoke even the slightest shred of empathy. Nazis are practically a filmmaker’s cheat code: universally reviled, cartoonishly evil, and weirdly satisfying to watch explode into chunks. Sisu leans into this dynamic entirely, treating Nazi soldiers as nothing more than cannon fodder, ready to be impaled, shot, exploded, or drowned. Their deaths aren't just brutal-they're downright inventive, like each sequence is a challenge to one-up the last. When the screen is painted red with their blood, it's oddly liberating, as if the film knows that sometimes, there's no need for moral complexity.


The Story: A Convenient Excuse for Mayhem


The plot is serviceable at best, and that's being generous. A gold prospector fights Nazis to keep his treasure-it's a simple premise that works only because it doesn't try to do anything more. Who needs character arcs or thematic depth when the point is to simply watch one man annihilate a squad of fascists with a shocking lack of trepidation? Sisu knows exactly what it is and doesn't pretend otherwise. That self-awareness is part of its charm.


Summary


Sisu isn't a film for anyone, but it's absolutely the film for someone who's on the hunt for relentless, stylish violence. Aatami Korpi is the avatar of silent vengeance, wreaking havoc with the cold determination of a man who has seen too much. Gritty cinematography, pause-worthy kill shots, and an absurd body count-this is a film that leans in all the way into its own ridiculousness and delivers on those bloody promises. The story takes a major backseat, but honestly, when the spectacle is this good, who's complaining? If you’re in the mood for a brutal bloodbath and don’t mind the body count soaring into cartoonish territory, Sisu is the cinematic equivalent of an axe to the face: brutal, satisfying, and unforgettable.

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