Sisu
Regal Cinema - Hazleton, PA
Our third Mystery Movie was by far my favorite one yet. No disrespect intended to Paint or Mafia Mamma, but Sisu is on another level. What I'm about to say is an oversimplification of the story that's being told here, but if I had to sum up this movie in 30 seconds or less, I'd say the following: Sisu is what you'd get if you wanted to turn Rambo into a World War II film with The Undertaker character in Stallone's role.
I'm expecting that a lot of reviews for this film are going to compare it to Inglourious Basterds, but aside from the fact that it involves brutally killing Nazi's during the second World War, the two films share almost nothing in common. The action scenes are something that I'm sure Tarantino would appreciate, but the dialogue is very different from his style. In fact, there's very little dialogue at all, and the vast majority of it comes from the Nazi's who are all speaking English throughout the film. I think that was the right choice. It's not that I mind subtitles, but they do draw your eyes away from the scene, which is not something you want for a movie like this. It's much easier to just suspend disbelief for a little while instead of presenting the entire film in German. At the risk of spoiling part of the movie, I appreciate the way that the dog was used to connect the audience to the main character, and to keep them feeling anxious about the dog's safety throughout the story.
This movie isn't for everyone, but it most definitely is for me.
