"Noch nie war es so ein Spass zu sehen wie Nazis vernichtet werden!" Film School Rejects

"Stoic determination, resilience, bravery, equanimity, and tenacity of purpose – these are the characteristics of sisu, a concept that Finns associate with their 'national character'. In the eponymous film, these qualities are embodied by a gruff man of few words capable of brutally and efficiently killing Nazis. SISU is a survivalist action film stripped down to the bone in which a tired unit of Nazis at the end of the war fights a lone but practically indestructible gold prospector. A wildly exaggerated feast of blood and suffering, the film is part Western and part ironic Finnish answer to the dated action flicks of Sylvester Stallone et al." Antonín Tesař, Karlovy Vary International Filmfestival 2022

"While writer-director Jalmari Helander's young-adult adventure gems "Rare Exports" and "Big Game" synthesized their proudly Finnish stories with the awe and wonder of Amblin Entertainment films of the 1980s, the touchstones in SISU are instead calibrated towards more hard-boiled action classics like "First Blood" and "Mad Max: Fury Road". Tommila's performance itself is tuned to the cool stoicism of a Sergio Leone gunslinger, as Nazis are pulverized, shredded, and exploded in a spectacle of gory set pieces spanning land, sea, and air – each one an outrageous escalation of the last.
Throughout all this comic book-pitched mayhem, Helander skilfully balances the film's badass bravado with a patently dry Finnish wit, which will elicit irresistible guffaws in tandem with the constant applause and exclamations of incredulous expletives that a rabid Midnight audience will otherwise be discharging." Petzer Kuplowsky, Toronto International Filmfestival 2022