Sisu: Road to Revenge Hits Digital — Here’s When and Where to Watch
Jalmari Helander revs up the mayhem with Sisu: Road to Revenge, the action-charged sequel now unleashed on digital.
If you skipped Sisu: Road to Revenge in theaters, good news: the at-home version just dropped, and it is very much Jalmari Helander doing what he does best. The first Sisu was basically an ultra-violent highlight reel stitched into a movie (in a good way), and the follow-up keeps the pedal down.
Our reviewer called it "a feast of carnage, grit, and dark humor."
The quick version
- Available now on Amazon: rent for $19.99, buy for $24.99
- Writer/director: Jalmari Helander (back from the first movie)
- Cast: Jorma Tommila returns as the indestructible lead, with Stephen Lang (Dont Breathe) as the new big bad and Richard Brake along for the ride
- Producers: Mike Goodridge and Petri Jokiranta; executive producers Gregory Ouanhon and Antonio Salas
What this sequel is actually about
Set after the war, our guy — the one people literally call "the man who refuses to die" — goes back to the home where his family was murdered. He tears the place down piece by piece, loads the whole house onto a truck, and sets out to rebuild it somewhere safer in their honor. Yes, he takes an entire house on the road. That is not a metaphor.
Of course, the Red Army commander who killed his family (Stephen Lang) shows up itching to finish what he started, and suddenly we are in a brutal, cross-country chase packed with ridiculous-but-clever set pieces. It is wall-to-wall action and then some.
Refresher: what Sisu was all about
The original was set in the dying days of WWII in northern Finland, where a lone prospector — who happens to be a former commando — runs into a retreating group of Nazis. They steal his gold. Bad idea. What follows is him annihilating anyone in his way to get it back. The title, Sisu, is a Finnish concept with no perfect English match; think stubborn, white-knuckle willpower that does not quit, even when the odds are absurd. The movie turned that into a lean, mean, sleeper hit.
Is Road to Revenge worth your couch time?
If you liked the first one for its brutal simplicity and inventive ways to ruin a bad guy's day, you are the target audience. Helander keeps the same stripped-down, mythic energy — just swaps Nazis for a relentless Soviet foe and adds a house-on-a-truck mission that is so specific and strange it somehow makes the movie feel bigger.
If you queue it up, let me know if the chase beats worked for you — and whether Tommila still qualifies as the toughest man alive after what he survives this time.