In my Sisu review, I pointed out how making the Nazis the bad guys is the easiest way to draw sympathy from your hero. With World War II over, how can Road to Revenge top that evil regime. By using the 2nd worst one at the time. Replace Soviets with Nazi’s and you basically have your Siquel? Sequ? Doesn’t matter, as long as you don’t mess with a guys logs.
And that’s not a euphemism. Told in 10-15 minute chapters, we learn more about Aatami Korpi (Jorma Tommila) and his relationship with these logs and why they’re his macguffin, er, treasure. But Korpi can’t just take his logs back to Finland. There’s a sadistic Red Army Officer, Igor Draganov (Stephen Lang), who wants the logs for himself. Ok he doesn’t: he wants to “fix the mistake” that created the Sisu legend.
Chapter 1 is Aatami’s greater backstory. Chapter 2 is how Draganov fits into it. So, 20 minutes in, we get Chapter 3: Motor Mayhem. Now that’s how you rev up an action movie quickly. Horses this time are replaced by planes, trains, and automobiles. No one’s talking, everyone’s just doing. And doing brutally! Each kill in Road to Revenge is as violent as possible, for no reason whatsoever. Expect all sorts of blood sprays, decapitations, severed limbs, etc for daring to get into Korpi’s way. Yes it’s disgusting, but it’s also incredibly set up. In particular the car chase in the middle is incredibly staged, with explosions aplenty and a new wrinkle every minute or so. The final act borders on gross for gross’s sake, but at least it makes up for it with inventive ways to hide weapons, try new and bigger weapons, and be extra funny with weapons. And die from tetanus hours after Road to Revenge ends.
As for our villain, the bigger budget swaps out generic Nazi’s for one scary Soviet. Stephen Lang, forever a military officer, dons the character he was born to play, just as a part of the USSR this time. Lang gets to languidly pontificate with words while Korpi stares angrily at him, and other soldiers around Draganov look scared as hell, a recipe that works for every scene. Savvy vet of films like this, Lang does a bunch of fun little asides when the mono e mono battle commences in earnest, making it more than just 2 old scowly men bludgeoning each other.
And our 90 minutes are over! No frills necessary for Sisu: Road to Revenge. The sequel nailed the formula for Korpi’s tales, if they want to do another. I recommend maybe the guy who played Vecna in Stranger Things as the next villain? He can cackle it up and not realize who he’s up against, plus a younger nemesis is a nice wrinkle. Or he ends up in China fighting Mao’s regime. Either or.