Rare Exports: Refining The Santa Trade

A Finnish youngster, Onni Tommila, and his father, Jorma Tommila, find wild Santa Clauses and elves after a glacier is drilled and decide to make some money.

So despite the outlandishness of that premise this film is not a comedy, not really, it is more so an action horror film with a silliness to it. I found the film to have a number of scary moments, and I would say the action was strong in the last third of the film, hence I am happy to call it an action horror film. The jokes were few and far between so I wouldn’t say to watch this if you are looking for a laugh.

I found it interesting to see a Christmas film from outside the Anglosphere and to see how they approach it, I am relatively new to Finnish cinema but I must say that they have a way with vistas, between this and the other Finnish film I have seen of Sisu I have to say the Finnish really have an eye for cinematography.

I found the idea of evil Father Christmas/Elves to be refreshingly different and not go in the way I was expecting it too, so that’s a plus as well.

Overall, an interesting and fresh film, with some slight pacing issues.

4/5

Pros.

It is fresh

It has some good scares

The action is also good

The ending sets up interesting prospects for the future

Cons.

Pacing issues

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Sisu: Fighting The Nazi Charge

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A retired soldier turned gold prospector, played by Jorma Tommila , must take up arms once again when the Nazi’s try and hoard in on his find.

I had been looking forward to this one for a while, and after having seen it I can honestly say it was fine. Nothing more, nothing less.

I liked the setting and the fact that it explored a conflict that is not often covered within war films. Moreover, I thought the lore of the film and the prospector’s backstory, very much like with John Wick, were good and well developed. The creative teams behind both this and Wick really do worldbuilding well.

However, something I didn’t like about it was that it carried over something that really made me turn on the last John Wick film and that is the unbelievability. I like that within these films even though the protagonist is an elite killer they still face a threat of death as it helps to keep things interesting. However, here as with the last Wick film, the threat of death is removed and these characters are shown to be superhuman surviving everything with a grunt. Though this might seem amusing, and it is at first, it quickly becomes boring thereafter.

Overall, an interesting premise let down by a superhero lead.

2.5/5

Pros.

Exploring less common areas of history in cinema

An interesting premise

Good action

Cons.

By removing the threat of death it all just becomes pointless

It has pacing issues

The Nazi villains are barely even characters

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