Jalmari Helander

Sisu: Road to Revenge

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Aatami in a truck

Old Guys R Us: Part Two – Sisu: Road to Revenge repeats the formula of the first movie, of the iron-hard old Finnish dude taking on unimaginable numbers of bad guys… and prevailing, in a vastly entertaining way. He’s John Wick in a beard, transposed back to the 1940s. First time around the enemy was the Nazis. But time has moved on for Aatami Korpi (Jorma Tommila), the war is over and the Nazis have been defeated. For Finns the result has not been entirely good. In a voiceover prologue that’s almost the entire movie’s spoken-word spend, we learn that the Soviet Union has advanced into Finland, taken a good chunk of territory … Read more

Sisu

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Aatami, smeared in dirt

Sisu is the return to form that Finnish director Jalmari Helander’s fans were hoping for. If he’d died after his feature debut, 2010’s Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, he could have shuffled off to Tuonela knowing he’d made a funny, grisly Christmas movie like no other. But he followed up with Big Game, an attempt to weld Helander’s dark ethos to something more obviously Hollywood (it starred Samuel L Jackson), which not only didn’t quite satisfy either camp but also diluted the Rare Exports story a touch. TV work followed and now Sisu, a dark, bloodlusty, periodically howlingly funny film that reverses Helander out of that corner. First Blood is the inspiration, Helander … Read more

Rare Exports

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Knut Osa Greger as Santa Claus in Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 6 December Saint Nicholas dies, 343AD On this day in 343AD (or CE if you prefer), Nikolaos of Myra died. Born in 270AD, in Patara, Greece, to rich parents, Nikolaos was a devout Christian who became a priest, then a bishop and attended the First Council of Nicea, where he was against the Arian heresy (which states that Jesus is subordinate to God), and signed the Nicene Creed, which is still the mainstream declaration of Christianity to this day. On a less bureaucratic level, Nikolaos became known for the miracles he worked during his life (bringing murdered children back to life, … Read more