The Herald - The Herald Magazine
A ridiculous romp in which Nazis die hardest
Damon Smith reviews the latest new releases to watch in the cinema
SISU (15)
Taking its title from the Finnish word for a deep-rooted stoicism and rage, which manifest when all hope seems lost, Sisu is a gleefully overblown action adventure that pits one seemingly indestructible man against the might of the Nazi war machine.
Writer-director Jalmari Helander previously spiked the festive spirit with his deliciously dark seasonal fable, Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale. Here, he doesn’t stint on the wince-inducing gore by forcibly introducing characters’ heads and appendages to landmines, knives and the treads of a tank in squelchy close-up.
An innocent animal is one of the first casualties of the dizzying carnage, a clear indication that all creatures great and small are in Helander’s crosshairs and there is no room for compassion or sentimentality in the heat of conflict.
Everyone is expendable, especially a gold prospector played with grizzled intensity by Jorma Tommila, who calls upon his military training to single-handedly unleash fury on a platoon of Nazis that has invaded his country. In a series of breathlessly orchestrated skirmishes on land and underwater, Tommila’s vengeful hero proves one man can make a difference, even when he is left dangling lifeless from a noose with steady blood loss that should render a final act obsolete.
Helander firmly embraces the madness of his hyper-violent vision, paring back dialogue and exposition to deliver a lean, streamlined 88 minutes of adrenaline-pumping thrills. In 1944 as the Second
World War enters its final stretch, Finland attempts to remove invading German forces from its borders to honour the terms of a recent treaty with the Soviet Union.
The Nazis retaliate with sickening scorched earth tactics, taking women hostage to brutalise while they burn everything in their path.
Retired Finnish commando Aatami Korpi (Tommila) prospects for gold in the countryside, far removed from the mounting devastation, with only a horse and trusty mutt for company.
This solitude is a far cry from his past as an instrument of destruction dubbed “The Immortal” with more than 300 enemy kills to his name.
En route to the nearest town to deposit a motherlode of freshly mined gold, Aatami silently passes sadistic German platoon leader Bruno Helldorf (Aksel Hennie), who is murdering indiscriminately with his second-in-command Wolf (Jack Doolan). The Nazi commandant is instructed to ignore Aatami and evacuate but once he learns the old man is carrying a glistering fortune in his saddle bags, Helldorf foolishly engages the prospector in combat.
Neatly bookmarked into seven blood-saturated chapters with selfexplanatory titles such as The Nazis, Minefield and Kill ‘Em All, Sisu is a self-consciously ridiculous romp that refuses to shy away from outlandish excess.
Tommila’s finely calibrated killing machine cuts a swathe through every stylised frame, repeatedly defying certain death like a Nordic John McClane. Thanks to Helander’s penchant for gratuitous viscera, you can be sure the Nazis die hardest.
7.5/10
THE LITTLE MERMAID (PG)
Disney’s 28th animated feature film, torn from the pages of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale, gets a razzle-dazzling live action treatment with Oscar-nominated Chicago director Rob Marshall at the helm.
This Little Mermaid causes a big splash in expertly choreographed musical sequences including Daveed
Diggs’s showstopping renditions of Under The Sea and Kiss The Girl as ebullient red crab Sebastian, Halle Bailey’s heart-tugging belt of Part Of Your World as Ariel and Melissa McCarthy’s deliciously vampy glide through Poor Unfortunate Souls as Ursula.
The picture is buoyed by thingamabobs that made the original film so memorable including exuberant characters, a lip-smacking villainess and the irresistible Menken-Ashman songbook. However, when Marshall allows a tsunami of digital effects to drown his human cast, his film threatens to capsize, most notably in a sloppy, water-logged finale that includes a close-up of Bailey in mermaid form that bears scant resemblance to the exquisite creature from earlier aquatic sequences. Thankfully, he deploys the emergency life raft of an unabashedly sentimental coda.
7/10
HYPNOTIC (15)
Don’t believe your eyes in writerdirector Robert Rodriguez’s disorienting thriller, co-written by Max Borenstein.
Police detective Danny Rourke (Ben Affleck) is haunted by the one case that he can’t solve: the kidnapping of his daughter Minnie.
The trail appears to have gone cold and with no fresh leads, Danny fears he may never see his pride and joy again. During an elaborate heist, Danny discovers a picture of his daughter, suggesting she may be alive and connected to the robbers.
He is drawn to a psychic called Diana Cruz (Alice Braga), who introduces Danny to the unseen world of hypnotics: people with the ability to control how we perceive reality and control our actions.
A menacing figure called Dellrayne (William Fichtner) appears to be the mastermind of the heist and Danny becomes laser-focused on learning if he knows Minnie’s whereabouts. Unfortunately, Dellrayne can warp perceptions with murderous intent and everyone is a potential victim including Danny and his police partner Nicks (JD Pardo).