Jorma Tommila
“SISU” My rating: B (Peacock)
91 minutes | MPAA rating: R
The Finnish actioner “Sisu” feels like a Road Runner cartoon directed by Quentin Tarantino.
Not that it’s funny, exactly. Jamari Helander’s film is crammed with gloriously gruesome mayhem meted out by a silent fellow who, like the beep-beeping star of those old Chuck Jones cartoons, survives every attempt on his life, absorbing punishment after punishment.
The violence is utterly outlandish, but presented with such a straight face (and with so much stage blood) that we get caught up in the whole silly premise.
It also helps that the Wile E. Coyote of the piece is a platoon of goonish Nazis. Nature’s perfect bad guys.
We first see Astami (Jorma Tommila) in the vast treeless plains of Lapland. Accompanied only by his dog, this heavily scarred fellow with a white beard is prospecting. One day he finds a vein of gold so rich that he soon has a couple of backpacks crammed with fist-sized nuggets.
Up to this point we don’t really know whether this is taking place in the present or the distant past. Then we’re introduced to a unit of retreating Germans. Okay…so World War II.
Basically this is an elaborate chase. The Nazi commander (Aksel Hennie) takes Astami’s gold and leaves him for dead. Figuring the war is lost, the German plans on using the treasure to build a new life.
But it turns out that Astami is a Finnish national hero, a sniper/survivalist who before leaving the war behind racked up hundreds of kills.
Now he wants his gold back. He goes after the Germans like some sort of Scandinavian Terminator.
Along the way he will be shot, nearly blown apart, set on fire, hanged and drowned. He’ll even survive a plane crash.
You can’t keep a good Finn down.
Oh…and with the Germans is a truckload of Finnish women being used as sex slaves. Astami makes sure that before it’s all over the ladies will be well armed and ready for vengeance.
Among the film’s “huh?” elements is the dialogue, which drifts unexpectedly between English, German and Finnish for no obvious reason.
Then there are the many virtues of “Sisu” (a Finnish word that roughly translates as “unstoppable”): drop-dead gorgeous cinematography, spectacular fight coordination and especially the slow-burn performance of Tommila, who doesn’t say a word until the final scene but commands the screen every time a camera (or gun) is pointed at him.
Cate Blanchett, Michael Fassbender
“BLACK BAG” My rating: B+ (Peacock)
93 minutes | MPAA rating: R
About the highest praise I can give Steven Soderbergh’s “Black Bag” is that it is of John le Carre quality, a spy thriller less about violence than about the toll the business of espionage takes on the human soul.
Michael Fassbender (who seems to be in every movie) is George Woodhouse, a Brit intelligence agent who after a legendary field career is now holding down a desk. His specialty is rooting out double agents.
David Koepp’s script is set in motion when George is given a list of five fellow agents suspected of selling secrets to Britain’s enemies.
Just one problem: One of the suspects is George’s wife Kathryn (Cate Blanchett). The big question: If it turns out that Kathryn is a turncoat, will George serve his country or his heart?
After much preliminary sleuthing, George decides to hold a dinner for the potential traitors (the others are played by Tom Burke, Regé-Jean Page, Naomie Harris and Marisa Abela).
It’s borderline Agatha Christie (everyone assemble in the dining room where the killer will be revealed) but thanks to the intricacies of the screenplay and a fistful of great actors playing duplicity to the hilt, “Black Bag” becomes a hold-your-breath thriller.
And then there’s the title. “Black Bag” refers, of course, to black bag operations, meaning an assignment so secret that you must keep it from your friends and loved ones. While superficially about rooting out a mole, on a deeper level this film is about living in an environment where no one — not your boss, your best friend or your lover — can be trusted.
Amazingly, all this is there in Fassbender’s quietly contained performance. Like Le Carre’s George Smiley, George is a bespectacled straight man with a volcano of suppressed and rarely-expressed emotion smoldering within.
Now that’s some acting.
Rami Malek, Caitriona Balfe
“THE AMATEUR” My rating: B-(Hulu)
122 minutes | MPAA: PG-13
The Rami Malek starrer “The Amateur” has little of the depth of “Black Bag,” but as a sort of underdog espionage yarn it’s diverting and generally satisfying.
Malek is Heller, who writes top-secret computer code for the CIA. He’s essentially a nerd, but he does have a deeply satisfying marriage to Sarah (Rachel Brosnahan), whose job requires her to travel internationally.
On one such trip Sarah becomes a hostage when terrorists take over a London hotel. She is executed in front of the television cameras.
Heller is crushed. Then he wants to get even, badgering his boss (Holt McCallany) to undergo field training so that he can track down the terrorists. The bigwigs figure this hopeless amateur will soon tire of the whole business.
Uh, no.
One of the virtues of Ken Nolan and Gary Spinelli’s screenplay (based on James Hawes’ novel) is that it tricks the viewer in the same way Heller tricks his handlers. Just when you think the jig is up and our man is going down, the film reveals that Heller has been way ahead of us all the time.
His bosses — who secretly organized the illegal terrorist action that took Sarah’s life — find they can’t keep track of Heller as he galavants around Europe because the computer programs designed for that purpose were written by Heller himself. He knows all the loopholes.
“The Amateur” has a deep supporting cast (Laurence Fishburne, Jon Bernthal, Julianne Nicholson, Caitriona Balfe, Michael Stuhlbarg) and the direction by James Hawes keeps the yarn chugging along.
As for the Oscar-winning Malek, this film will undoubtedly come to be regarded as a toss-off in a career of some depth. But as toss-offs go, it’s enjoyable enough.
| Robert W. Butler
Butler's Cinema Scene 