SISU (Finland, 2023)

There's gold, nazis and one double-hard Fin in historical war action slasher SISU, written and directed by Jalmari Helander and starring Jorma Tommila, Aksel Hennie, Jack Doolan and Mimosa Willamo.  >>> SISU trailer<<<

Elsewhere our peepers have peeped VIRKAM, THE MAN WHO FEELS NO PAIN, THE MOTHER, ZOMBIELAND 2, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY 3, TOO MANY FASTnFURIOUSes

Trailergeddon:
FARANG | Official Trailer | STUDIOCANAL International
THE CREATOR Trailer (2023)
SHEROES Trailer (2023)
THE ROUNDUP 2: NO WAY OUT Trailer (2023)

The show's got a Twitter: @dodgethispod and so do @simonfeilder & @matthighton // Instagram: @simonfeilder & @itsmatthighton // and websites simonfeilder.com & matthewhighton.com
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Transcript

1:01

There is a man who has decided to leave the war behind him. I don't think we should have a rate in systemicists. He's measuring Nazi thumbs. Do you really believe that he's immortal? No. He just refuses to die. Wow. You pick that game up. You can call it the art of fighting without fighting. Stick around. Some motherfuckers are always trying to ice skate on me. Dodge this. Yes, please. It's dodge this action movies unleashed. Welcome to season six, episode 12. No, that's a fuck that quite early on actually is season two, episode six. I said six instead. And now the whole podcast is ruined. My name is Simon Feather. I we've there's been a little break there because I've been away in a different country and it's addled my brain, but I'm now back. in the Netherlands, Amsterdam to be precise. And we're coming to you live via the wires of the internet. They're stored under the sea and one of them is plugged directly into South London, where my good friend Matthew Highton currently sits. Hello Matthew. Matthew Highton Hi Simon. Yes, welcome to London. I am an ambassador for its culture. So yeah, just nice to be here. Nice to be international. Chatting to my pal. ready to talk some gore. Now, if I'm not mistaken, you're actually sat inside a red telephone box right now, is that correct? Yeah, there's a guy in a bowler hat to my right making what looks like a business call. And outside a little urchin is shining a man's shoes, whilst a woman is spontaneously about to sing a song about the pigeons. Well, that's lovely. How's your chimney? you say? Will Barron You know what? They've been really on it this year. So we're getting it cleaned two, three times a week at the moment. Will Barron They've just got a great union, haven't they? That's what's happened there, the sweeps. Yeah. Will Barron They do. They have a great reunion. Will Barron They're doing good. Will Barron And you know, yes, the dancing on your roof can be a bit distracting when you're living in the home. Will Barron A little annoying, yeah. Will Barron But you know what? It's all part of the charm of the big city. Will Barron That's London for you. If I know anything about London, that is all of the things. What? Can you see Big Ben from where you're sat? I can see Big Ben. What is the time in London currently? The time in London is currently 9.28. In the morning? In the morning. I don't mind telling you, listener, I think this might be the earliest podcast that we've ever recorded. Yes, we both look great, but with a little bit of, oh, our eyes aren't quite hydrated yet. I can't argue with that. That is fair. I've got the added benefit of a one hour bonus being in Amsterdam. So it's 10.28 here, but I think it's safe to say we're both more sort of evening people, aren't we? This isn't anything to do with action films, son. Mason You're absolutely right. Let's bloody get into it. We've had a little while since last we spake. Matthew, have you seen anything that you would like to share with the class? Mason Oh, I've been very busy actually watching stuff. I guess the big, for the podcast. things that I've watched is obviously Guardians of the Galaxy 3, which was incredible. I think they have made one of the all-time best trilogies. Niamh Really? Mason Really? Mason I think it's up there. I think, because we don't get that anymore. And again, stuff that we're attached to, like Indiana Jones trilogy, Star Wars trilogy, I think it's of the same ilk. The fact that it's tied to the MCU obviously makes it a bit of a different going to try and go and watch it again, I think, because there's so much I want to re-watch. You like it, I think, just because the action is done very well in it. Mason. Yeah, I mean, I've heard nothing but good things, but full disclosure, I haven't seen Guardians of the Galaxy 2 yet. Toby. Two is good. It isn't one, and it isn't three. It's definitely the... Mason. That's what they're saying. Toby....is the Temple of Doom of the trilogy. Mason. Okay. How good is Temple of Doom still? You still enjoy Temple of Doom. Notice how I have discontinued. films, one which is out next week, is it? Will Barron The New Indie and Crystal Skull. Toby Hickman Yeah, which we should watch. I'm hearing very mixed things. And then the other thing is I am three Fast and the Furious movies into my rewatch, which got put on hold because I was away for two weeks. So yeah. Tokyo Drift, not as bad as I remembered. Will Barron I think Tokyo Drift is actually the one that I haven't seen. It's basically a high school movie with drifting. You know what I learned from that film, Simon? What's that? There's no problem, big or small, they can't be settled with a bit of drifting. That's fashion, I'll be absolutely fair. I love a bit of drifting. It's like, it's sort of, if you love skidding in your socks, it's that in a car really. Yeah. If you want to ruin your tyres and your handbrake. Oh boy. I... During the last few weeks, listener, I have been away in the big city of Mumbai, India. During that time, I watched Fast and Furious 9 because X was about to drop. Then having watched 9 and being like, yeah, I mean, this is a different movie now, isn't it, to what it was even I was just like, I don't know if I'm that bothered about watching Fast X, because it's going to be more of this and this, while entertaining in a way, isn't quite doing it for me. It's so weird. I mean, I guess that's the thing with franchise, isn't it? When you are... It's done a Freddy in Space, hasn't it? Essentially. Yeah. It's turned into basically like the... Fast and Furious cinematic universe. It's sort of turned into like a comic book now. It's so absurd. And I guess it knows that and everyone watching it knows that. But somewhere in me there's just like Fast Five being a marginally realistic, enjoyable action movie. Everyone says that's the best one. I think it is. I think it just peaked. That just peaked at five and it's sort of been diminishing returns ever since. It is incredible. Cause like the first one... I love. Because a Point Break remake, I think I've said that before, that's all it is. It's Point Break on wheels. Mason- Interesting. Toby- Yeah, it is. It's an uncover cop, gets ingrained in a subculture, becomes so ingrained, falls in love and befriends someone and ultimately thinks that's more important than their job. It's Point Break. Mason- Yeah, okay. Toby- Except they're stealing and robbing banks. And Fest and Furious, as I love to remind people, is still in DVD players. It's so of an era. It's amazing, isn't it? Who'd have thought? And then in nine, they just drive a car and it goes into space. Don't worry about it, mate. My actual point was, I wasn't just randomly going, I've been in Mumbai. It was this. I was very tempted to go and see Guardians of the Galaxy 3, whilst in Mumbai, because I... wanted to do fun stuff and I couldn't find it showing anywhere in 2D. This was, I was just like, people love 3D. Cinema in Mumbai it turns out, or it makes the most, I don't know what the answer was, but I struggled. You better get watching in 3D. Sorry mate. I was like, I'm sorry I don't want to watch any movies in 3D anymore. Whoa, grandpa. That's out there. That is out there. I've seen one. It was Avatar. And that's enough. It is a thing. Sometimes if a film's been filmed for it, I love the gimmick. But when it's just been put into 3D, I'm just like, oh, this is just blurry. Will Barron Yeah. Yeah. I don't want it. I don't want it. Anyway, while I'm tangentially on the topic of India, I've watched two more Indian movies since we last spoke, both of which I watched on the plane to India, just because I was very keen on getting into the vibe. Have I watched some critically acclaimed movies on many lists? No, of course I haven't. I watched some action movies that were, as I've learned, very difficult to judge based on reviews, because there's a lot of hyperbole on public facing review platforms. So I watched Vikram, which people were... Oh, I've heard loads about Vikram. People saying it was the best action movie of 2022. It's not. Good. Sorry. It's just not good. I didn't like it. It's just very over the top. Lots of speed ramping. Lots of a man shooting a gun while stupid people run in the way of it. And sort of medium fight scenes and it's way too long. Not for me, thank you. But I'll end on a more positive note. because then I watched The Man Who Feels No Pain, which is on Netflix. And that I enjoyed a lot more. It had a much more of a sort of singular vision, like indie or turrish vibe. It put me in mind a little bit of Edgar Wright at times. It had that sort of, yeah, it had like a vision and clearly they were trying to do a thing. thing, which I quite liked. Also Son of Rambo. It reminded me of that a little bit because it was like a story of like a kid and he watched movies and he learned stuff. It had some fun martial arts in it. I hate to sound like a broken record, but it's just too long. It's just too long. A lot of Indian movies are very long and both of these ones just felt too long. This one wasn't three hours though. It was probably like two and a bit. Could have been, could have been your solid 100 minutes, but... much more enjoyable and I would recommend that. OK, I'll give that a little pencil. Yeah, sorry, I don't know what the Indian title is, but it's The Man Who Feels No Pain. Also on your recommend, last night I watched Zombie Land 2. It's alright, innit? It's alright, innit? Yeah. It's fun. It reminded me how much I enjoyed the first Zombie Land, I suppose, because it sort of what would you call it? Like meta filmmaking in a way. It's like, oh, there's like a knowing voiceover narration. There's like on-screen graphics. It's like if YouTube was a feature film. Have you watched just on that exact sentence? Because one of my favourite things about Zomalyn too is the dynamic titling. They love it. Some really great dynamic titles. Have you watched the Mitchells versus the Machines? No. What is that? It's incredible. It's an animated film from two, three years ago. It's got loads of awards. It's basically the perfect family film, I think, because it balances a load of old references for obviously parents, but it is the most geared to a kid could have done a load of YouTube conventions and then made unbelievably cinematic. The action is actually, again, animated action, brilliant. The pacing is just non-stop. I think it's one of the best animated films I've seen in the last 10 years. I absolutely love it. Mason- I've never even heard of it. It's called The Mitchells. Mason- The Mitchells versus the Machines. It's so good. It's just so fun and so silly and absolutely been on us. Mason- Love it. Mason- Yeah. Mason- Alright, I want to look it up. Mason- I can't remember being that impressed by an animated film for ages. Mason- Interesting. Mason- Because I went in knowing nothing. except hearing good things. Where is it made? It was an American film, and yeah, again, I don't want to go... I just think you should watch it. Yeah, alright, I'll look it up. And it'll make you feel so happy. It's great. Oh, okay, no, I like that. I like some heartwarming stuff. I did see the trailer for the new Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse. Yes. And it did, oddly, it- I really liked the first one. I don't watch a lot of animated stuff and I'm increasingly tired of Marvel, but that I really enjoyed because it did feel fresh and new and exciting. The early stuff coming out about that is insane. It's like people just calling it art, essentially. I mean, yeah. What felt a bit odd was that it kind of felt a bit sequely in the sense that they were like, well. we've done this now. So let's really do this now. Yeah, end degree, yeah. And it sort of lost some of the like, freshness and excitement, I suppose, of seeing it for the first time. I think they're holding so much back for the film. They're so aware of their genre and like what they do. I think they're just going, there's a lot of cool shit in this, but you have not seen anything yet. Well, I hope so. That would be great. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it's for like, proper... fans of the comic that don't need, and I guess for the MCU, for people coming that way, but properly just going, you've got all the information over the years you need about Spider-Man, so we're going to give you everything. Mason- Yeah, is it a lot of deep cuts that are completely lost on old weekend warrior fair weather comic book fan? Oh, in the background you can actually see Professor Nefarious from the Christmas issue number 147. Um, yeah, that's not going to happen. That's going to happen. No, no, because actually Professor Nefarious was transported into the metaverse. Okay, boy. We should do some trailers because we are almost 50 minutes in. Yeah, let's get into some trails, boy. blast through these. We've got four, so let's blast through them. Let's blast them. Let's go. First of all, we have got Farang coming out of... It's international. It's Britain and... France? Belgium? Thailand? Well, the director Xavier Rhegenz, I want to say is... Yeah, you really made that awful. Thank you. Thank you. Could be. I don't know where he's from. Is he French? Is he Belgian? Those are my two guesses. That's what I'm going in with. He's directed some episodes of Gangs of London though. This seems like an absolutely textbook, solid, meat and two veg, action revenge bugger. for guys' actions, which essentially are through no fault of his own. And so the only way he can get back is by getting even. Mason- Breaking some heads. Steele- Yeah. But this looks great. I mean, I'm always excited because I still think Studio Canal churn out so much good stuff. So as soon as I saw Studio Canal on there, I thought, all right, this is going to be right in my alley. Yeah. Bit of international. But you know the thing that impressed me most in this trailer, Simon? Is it that I think the last shot is someone getting cut in half? Mason- No, but that was fun. It is. After the absolutely action fad, I'm going to call it a fad because I can't think of a better word, of the main martial arts being MMA for about the last five, ten years. It's just nice to see some classic 90s Muay Thai coming into the trailer. Sure enough. You love to see it. I mean, when in Thailand, smash someone with your knee and your elbow. That's what Tony Ja taught me. Exactly. You forget martial arts does have a style of the times. You've got all the Bruce Lee from the 70s that came through Hollywood, but that 90s kick boxer, really straight knee. Oh, it's beautiful to see again. Yeah. Big fan of it. Yeah, this looks like it could be good. I mean, the action looks... crunching and solid. And if the, I mean, they're sort of playing up the gangs of London part, hoping that it is gangs of London season one, when Gareth Evans was involved, that has influenced it rather than season two, which I found rather lacking. But yeah, like I think you can already see little glimpses of those sort of very kinetic camera moves and really hard crunching borderline unpleasant violence. which is what we're here for. Yeah. Big, big excitement for this one. Also, minor tangent. All gone. Just because you said his family are in trouble, he's got to avenge them. And we talked about it so much last time and I forgot to mention it up top. I watched J.Lo in The Mother on Netflix. Why would you do that? It's a mum with a gun movie. It's not very good. That's all I've got to say about that. Let's move on. Save two hours. Next up, we have got the creator from Gareth Edwards. Mason- Edwards. I nearly said Evans. I caught myself. He did Monsters? big Gareth Edwards fan, so I am very excited about this. I am worried that they seem to have given the entire film away in the trailer. Mason- A lot is going on. And also, I had to sort of check myself and be like, is this an action film, or is it more of a sci-fi thriller? Jason- Well, this is the thing. I'm hoping, again, so it looks like a Blomkamp film. They've got that very sort of Blomkamp look to it. But again, both guys come from VFX backgrounds. I love Gareth Edwards. I think he's just an incredible filmmaker. So I'm so excited to see what this is. Mason- I mean, it's got a little bit of District 9, it's got a little bit of Terminator, a bit of iRobot. Jason- AI, all this stuff. Mason- Yeah. And it's got the word AI said out loud, which everything in the media has to have this year. Jason- Yeah, we're going to be hearing a lot of AI in films the next two years. But yeah, not much to say about this. It looks beautiful. It's... classic man protects robot child film. It's a classic robot child protection film. Yeah. Which is AI. Which is AI. That's fair actually. So we'll see. Again, I think this is going to be a big release, so keeping our eyes on it. Yeah. Big budget sci-fi spectacles. outside of the comic book universes, few and far between I would say these days. And it's nice when you see that, when you're like... It's certainly original IP. Yeah. Production design, you know, money on the screen. I like that. My brain started to go, well Simon, if you'll come down a little sci-fi hole with me, you'll find there's quite a lot of... Yeah. But yeah, it's great. Should we move on to Shiro's? Please. Sheero's. I've said that in the style of people chanting Alan Sheera's name. Nice. A bit out of character for me, in fairness. I liked it though. But I did live in Newcastle for a while, so something got in there. Yeah, something got in me. Alan Sheera got inside you. In a way, he's inside us all. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like that this film, whenever it was conceived, I think someone came up with that title. Reverse engineered it. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. Typed in chat.gbt. If I were to make a movie called Shiro's, where I've potmantowed she with heroes, what do you think that movie would be? Also, I want to mention Spring Breakers in the title. Can you generate that movie for me? I need Spring Breakers, another film that they did. Yes. Okay. Well, I think, I don't know if it said from the creators of, or from the... There was some tie into Spring Breakers, I believe. Which I've never seen. Uh, this trailer didn't do a lot for me. No, I sort of put it in as like the wild card pick because I think arguably it's, it's not also not like an action film. Like we would want an action film. It's a sort of very left field indie-ish. Dunno. Dunno. Could be good though, as a movie. I just feel like the doing the taken speech has been done so much to put that in your trailer. I was like, okay. Mason. Okay. I see where you're coming from. Doesn't take yourself seriously. That could, that can always go one of two ways. Jason. It's going to go either way, isn't it? Mason. Yeah. Speaking of which, I keep, I keep hopping back to the first section just because also I remembered that Arnie's Foo Bar landed on Netflix this week. Jason. People are saying good things. Mason. Are they? that was my reaction. Based on the trailer, we're like, no way. No way. I looked at the IMDB ratings, because I always think the IMDB ratings are a bit fairer than, say, Rotten Tomatoes. Most episodes have fallen around a 7.1, which is decent. The first episode seems to have got the lowest reviews, which I assume is a lot of people going, nah, this isn't for me. But I looked at the Rotten Tomatoes, the critic reviews are pretty much 50-50, but the audience reviews are quite high. Interesting. never encourages me, but it has gone from me completely writing it off in my head to going, okay, if I've got a day, maybe I'll just go in three or four episodes and see how it moves. Will Barron I feel like this is a Matthew Highton homework assignment. I'm unwilling. Do another thing that really piqued my interest though. So Arnie's been retweeting a lot of stuff about it because obviously he's doing the promo for it. There was just one tweet that you checked. I was like, okay, yeah, I'm obviously going to check that out. So someone was like, really enjoying this show. And yeah, like episode five, the bit with the puppet just really got me. You're like, I'm in. I'm in. Is there a cursed puppet? There's a puppet episode. Oh, my goodness. It's turning into a... I assume it's going to be father daughter counsellor or something. Anyway. Round of two. Let's get in and out of this one. All right. This is the final, the final trailer. Now this, we watched the Roundup on this podcast. Unfortunately, Matthew, you were AWOL. Um, I think me and Joe Roberts watched it. Um, what's interesting is that the Roundup is actually a sequel. So it's, it's the Outlaws 2, the Roundup. So calling this the Roundup 2 is very confusing because it's actually the third part in a series. Matthew, wake up. Listen to me. Listen to me. So you haven't seen the roundup, which is very enjoyable. And I would recommend having a look. Or roundup two. No, I've not seen any. Two roundups, two rounded up. I'm trying to think which country they go to. Do they go to Thailand in this? So it could be Thailand Drift or I'm clutching and nothing good is happening. Bail out! Move on! Don Lee punches a lot of people in the face and it's quite enjoyable. And I think they're really doubling slash tripling down on it clearly in this. And again, it looks like it's coming out in that Hong Kong school of, it's kicking ass, but it's causing smiles on the way. It does have a sense of humour to it. Yeah. And it's South Korean and we know they can almost do no wrong at the moment. Absolute Renaissance. With action movies and Ting. So yeah. I'll 100% be watching it. I mean, it's also, they've seemed to have turned it around very quickly because we only watched the roundup last year. Mason. But if you're saying it's part three of a story, they might have filmed it back to back. Angus That is also true. Yeah. That is also true. Maybe it was in the works the whole time and they just didn't tell us. Rude. I'm on the South Korean movie newsletter. Nobody told me. Mason. It's the government. They send it out. Hi Simon. Just personalised. They write everyone by hand. Angus That's true. I got an email this week from the Budapest Public Transport Network about their Metro line and when I was in Budapest briefly last year, I used an app to buy a ticket and since then I'm in, I'm in. They keep me posted. Is there an unsubscribe link on the email? You're damn right there's not. Impossible to escape. Simon's Metrolinq email updates, a really high obtained moment to really kick you back into reality. Mason And now, our feature presentation. Dodge this. Yeah, we're talking about Sisu and I did get to see this one in the cinema, which was very exciting. I did want to watch it in the cinema, but just couldn't get to the cinema. I saw it on a not very busy day. So the things that you would, you know, obviously it's great seeing it on a big screen with a big sound, but there's, I feel like this movie has so many of those moments where you're like... want an audience to be viewing and are in with you. And so I got a little bit of that, but not loads. And also here's, well, before we get into the movie, I've got two Indian cinema observations for you, Matthew, which I think you might enjoy. I saw this in a multiplex in Mumbai. It had seats that reclined. Have you been in Mumbai? Very delightful. I don't want to be the, I was in Mumbai guy, but it is relevant to the podcast. And cinema generally. Two quick observations, Matt. We know that Indian movies can be quite long and there is often an intermission in them. This we have learned over the past year. What I learned on my first cinema trip in Mumbai was even in this movie, Sisu, which comes in at a lean hour and a half, they've wedged a bloody interval in there, haven't they? Oh, that upset me. Halfway through the movie just stopped. I was like, Oh, what's happened? The projector's broken or something. No, it was just, it was just a little five minute break. Just a little five minute break in there. Nice. I wasn't mad at it, but I also didn't need it in a 90 minute movie. To say that would annoy me, but I get up for a wee nearly every film. So actually that would be quite good for me. Well, welcome to Movies in Your Forties with the song filter and Matt Duhide. This has been it all through my life. Oh, fair play. Okay, second tiny observation here. Before the movie plays, there's some adverts and trailers. And then a little video that looked like it was made in the 1970s or 80s goes, will you please be upstanding for the national anthem? What? And then there's a video of a flag and the national anthem plays. And then I had like a look on my face that was like, I don't know what's happening. And then I looked around. everyone stood up. So I stood up. I had to stand up. I just stood up. And then I was like, that's the thing. I guess. Well, so far I have a pool of one experience to draw from. So scientifically, I don't think I can say it's a thing, but in my limited experience, it is a thing. I will update you more on my future Mumbai cinema visits. I'm quite excited to find out this sort of thing. It must be a thing. I've never heard this before. I know. Incredible, right? If there's any Indian listeners, please fill in the blanks. And next time I'm in Mumbai, I will go to the cinema and I will add to my, what do you call it, pool of scientific information that I'm drawing on. Knowledge. That's the word. That's the one. I couldn't get it. No, not what I'm trying to think of, but I'm also not a scientist and I don't know how to explain what I'm saying properly. You get it. I'll go a few more times, we'll have a better... POOL OF INFORMATION TO DRAW FROM! Wow. Your vocab is popping at the moment. Extraordinary. Anyway, let's get back to Sisu, which I don't even mention, a saw in a cinema in Mumbai. Oh yeah. Also, I was like, ooh, I better find a screening that has English subtitles. Turns out didn't really need them. This movie is very internationally focused. Yeah. Yeah. If you, you were one of those people for some reason who doesn't like reading your films, you don't have to, if you're an English speaker, you're covered. Yeah. There's, there's A, 99% of the dialogue is in English. B, there ain't much dialogue coming through, if we're being honest. And they are all cocky, just in case you're... It's a very... It's a Finnish film, but everyone in it is for some reason a cockney. Yeah. All right, let's rewind. It's been a minute. I want to hear the Matthew Highton Film Summup.com. This is an easy one. That's got to be so simple. Surely. A old Finnish prospector. is mining gold with his dog in the middle of nowhere at the very end of World War II. We are in the final days of the war. He, after what looks like a struggle, given the amount of holes he's dug in the ground, finally strikes gold. And it's not just a bit, it's a shitsum. It's a rich seam. Now that is quite exciting, but the problem is he's got a long horse ride to the city where he can... exchange that for dollar bills or whatever the Finnish use and get it in the bank. Easy enough if you don't run into a troop of bloody Nazis, mate. And I didn't know this so much this film, but it's those old Nazis. Pretty bad people. So the Nazis, they want to get themselves that gold. Because they're coming out of the war, they think it'll mean they can become naughty men after the war. Narsimha So, normally that would be an easy, kill this old man and take the gold. Unfortunately, this bloody guy is an ex-military person who has been given the Finnish word, sisu, which if I recall, means refuses to die. And that is the momentum of the film. It is beautiful. It happens really fast once the action gets going. There's a beautiful slow burn, so you really get to familiarise yourself with this guy's life and stuff. No dialogue for absolutely ages. It's all beautifully shot, beautifully visual. And then he meets these Netsies, who are also keeping a bloody carriage of women, Simon. Mason- Oh, by the way. Toby- And it just gets going. Just gets going. I love this. I love this film. It was great. Mason- I did think this would be Matt Highton's special. I don't know how I would... If someone was like, what? do you mean when you say that? It's a very... It's just a sort of je ne sais quoi of like, a Simon Field special would probably just be, you know, like Donnie Yen in a modern day police thriller with really great fight scenes. And that's fine. Whereas a Matthew Highton special has a little, a little something, something like a little sprinkling of like humor or it's quirky. It's a bit... left field, off beat maybe. That's how I would... Yeah. It's a little larger than life. It's not just going to be a gritty, oh, this is grim. There's a bit of like, this isn't real, but you tune in, mate. Will Yeah. I think I'm over. Over our time together, our both friendship and on the podcast, I've... started to go, yes, Matthew is going to like this one. Mason- You've called that perfectly actually. Mason- In fairness, we watched the trailer for this a while back and we were both like, this is definitely pod worthy. Mason- If you enjoyed the trailer, you're going to enjoy this film. It's sold it exactly as it needs to. It's great. The thing I love about this is it is, and I love when they do this, this has been a thing since Planet Terror and... that base. It's a perfect growing house film. It's just- Yes, it is, isn't it? It's absolutely like, if you're in the 70s and you pop down to cinema. What I love about growing house films now is because Tarantino made that term so popular and Robert Rodriguez and they brought the growing house to the mainstream. Now when you get a new growing house film, it's not like a 70s film where it's gritty and a bit disgusting or an 80s film where it's low budget and sort of a video nasty. They're really well produced. Yeah. is what we want our growing house films to be. And this just ticks every box. And it is really, like, because you know the outcome of this film from the moment that guy runs into the Nazis. You can see how this is going to play out. But the journey it takes playing out, it's just so, like, it's grotty at times, it's just exciting at times, there's so many bits you just go, oh! Prince Charles Cinema, London, Leicester Square, written all over it. King Charles is watching it. Oh, do you think they've? Have they? No, they haven't. Are they going to change the cinema name? They did the famous cinema in London, if you're wondering what's happening, that shows this sort of film. But like, they do, if you're ever in London and you're a cinema fan, if you're not from London and you don't know the Prince Charles, look at what they're doing. They do all sorts of like, all-nighters, like I did, John Carpenter, all-nighter there. And the audience are all cinephiles, so they're laughing and they're sort of enjoying it. Yeah, it's the sort of film you could imagine King Charles watching the Prince Charles with an audience full of people. Charles goes to the cinema with his name on it. Charles loves a growing house film. The artist formerly known as Prince Charles. Nice. There. There it is. I'm really, really pleased with myself. That is good. That is good. Yeah. I think it's one of those, isn't it? And I do, as you were saying that, like the grindhouse nature of it, like you sort of, you can imagine like the sound of the projector whirring and like the, the voiceover of the trailer, you know, being like one man, all he wanted was to get his gold, but the Nazis were in his, like whatever. It's, it's, so is that it knows what it is. And it just sort of delivers exactly what you, you expect. And I mean that in a good way. It's just great. It's like someone said, imagine you found a load of gold and needed to take it to the bank. What's the worst thing we could put in the middle of the journey? What is the answer to what is the worst thing? It's usually just Nazis. Just not put Nazis in the way. But there is a thing, I think about this a lot, because obviously historically and culturally we have not just made the Nazis... It's become... the go-to. You can do anything to a Nazi in a film and not feel any empathy because they're Nazis. So it's that sort of thing. If you did this in a modern day and you went, and some awful soldiers, you'd have to really build up the soldiers to show that they're awful. Whereas with these guys, you already go, they're Nazis. Mason- From day one. Based on what he's wearing, I'm happy for him to be dismembered. They're also dirty, so they're grottinesses. And they're on the way back. So they've like somehow survived and they've probably done all kinds of bad shit. There's also like an army truck full of kidnapped Finnish women. Yeah. One of them is very grubby, doing some bad stuff. He's, he's the, he's the second, second in command lad sniper. Grubby man. He needs to come up and. he gets it. He really gets it, doesn't he? So yeah, there is a truck full of women that they're obviously just carting around for horrible reasons. But they have kind of a subplot running through this, which has a good payoff. But I'm calling this now. There'll be a CC- Spin-off. .. sequel or spin-off, and that group of women will be a squad. Yeah. I'm here for it. I'm here for it. Yeah. They don't get- a lot of screen time, but the sort of denouement payoff for them is exactly what you want and works great. What was that term you just used? Denouement. I've never heard this term. You've never heard the word denouement? And I've done A-level film. And that feels like the sort of A-level film thing. Now what's happening? 100%. Yeah. It's like the payoff, I suppose. The big, big finish. Oh. No pun intended. Yeah, I was going to say, I must have heard that, but never put it into my, the Demi-more, I'll remember. The Demi-more, that's it. That's how you type it. Type in the Demi-more into Google. See what it says? Yeah. But yeah, the good thing about this film is there's not, it's not one you need to go into detail about. Like. some of the films we can unpick for hours and go this, this, this, this, and this. But it's so lean and it's so simple that it is just like, you either enjoy it or you're not. Mason- Yeah. And I think some people have not enjoyed it as much as they thought. And I think my journey of it was, oh great, at the beginning, oh great, this is great. And it does get more and more, I suppose, unrealistic, is the way to describe it. as he sort of becomes not just like a hard old Liam Neeson man, but a... Mason, It's like a wraith isn't he? Will Barron Yeah, he's sort of an immortal killing machine by the end. Once they unspool the yarn of like, people say he cannot be killed and then you're like, he should be dead by now. Really. Mason, You know this is based loosely on a real sniper. Will Barron Is it? Mason, Yeah, so there's a sniper, I've got his name up now just because I wanted to check it. called Simo Hayar. His nickname was The White Death. So he was a Finnish sniper who, yeah, he basically in the war against the Soviet Union in the winter, he killed over 500 soldiers and became this sort of legend. Now I think there was a Jude Law film based on this as well. Do you remember Jude Law and oh, who was it? What's the Jude Law film where there's a sniper? Mason- It's not Enemy at the Gates, is it? Jason- It might be that. I think that kind of was loosely based on it. And there's the guy in the Tarantino and in Glorious Basterds, the German, I don't know if he was brought from this thing. But yeah, this guy is, so the two influences the director has mentioned for this film was the director called Jalamari Hollander, is it? Mason- Yes. Lucy, he was based on this guy who has this legend of the white death around him. So he sort of RRR'd it in a way. Where he's taken a sort of figure that may or may not have, or has existed and then spun it off into comic book fantasy. Rambo. He's a big fan of Rambo. R Numerous. I mean, the whole movie is Nazis being murdered by one man, ostensibly. We're on board with that. I don't think the new Indiana Jones movie is going to deliver this. I think it's going to be the goriest Indiana Jones ever. There's also another Nazi gold movie coming out in the next few weeks. The German one. It's the Deep Impact Armageddon. all over again. That's when it rains at Paul's. I don't know, parallel thinking, Nazis are gold. It's what we've all been waiting for. But yeah, I think my journey of it was, oh, I could be annoyed that this has got unrealistic and a bit silly, but I was never promised anything else. So just enjoy it for what it is. It never did. But again, like... done some really clever things to give a grounded empathy to a character that when it goes ridiculous, you love it. I mean, just giving him a little dog. I like this guy. He's got a little dog. Again, because he's a good filmmaker, he knows that he's got to constantly remind you that that dog is how that dog's doing. Don't want to give him any spoilers. He's constantly like, dog's there. We've not forgotten about him. love a man and a dog story. So there you go. Will Barron Yeah. I mean, his family's gone. All he has is the dog. Jason Vale We don't really know, do we? Again, what I think is the strength from a filmmaking perspective, the strength of this film is that all the information is not done through a conversation. It's all visual. can tell before you even get his legend and his backstory that he's been through it just because they have a scene where he's washing himself and you can see his scars. So you already know this guy. And he is just the perfect grizzled old man. The emotion, the weariness on his face, it sort of breathes throughout it. And it is just that thing, even when he first meets the Nazis, he doesn't want anything to do with it. They drew first blood, not him. There you go. Yeah. He's trying to be a peaceful man. All he wants is to walk past them. But Nazi's gonna Nazi. They are. It feels like a really brief, but I think there's so many action replays. Before we get to that, I just would like to talk a little bit about, I think it looks great. I think it's a very, it's clearly, we're going to make this movie. It's set in the Finnish wilderness. They found... It could be several locations. It could literally have been like one small plot of land somewhere in the Finnish countryside with a bit of road on it. But it's very, they've managed it very well. I think the budget was six million apparently on this. Yeah, it was six million USD. No, six million euros, about 6.5 USD. Thanks. Thanks for the compliment. I mean, you've dismissed that, but if you're making a film and someone went into nature... half million. No fair actually. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Yeah. You could probably do a few extra bits so that we could, we could. I could make, I could make 10 movies for that. I don't think they'd look like this, but I'd do my best. It's, yeah, it looks great. It's very measured. It does everything it can with the quote unquote limited budget. It doesn't feel cheap. What it does feel like, and I think this goes to your sort of grindhouse point is it feels like a really, and I mean this in the nicest possible way, but like a really good DTV movie. From a time when DTV movies weren't made for half a million, but they could be made for six million and not necessarily get a cinema release, you could still make the money. So I say that from a loving place, where what I'm saying is it's a simple, well-executed concept made with a sort of indie movie approach. It just gets everything done on a small to medium scale and is great. And I love that I got to see it in a cinema. And I love that it is getting a limited release. Mason- It's made for cinema. One of the things it does beautifully is it makes you feel like you're at the end of the world. It makes you feel so far about civilization. The way they use the way they keep the war on the edge of your peripheral. So yes, you've got this troop of Nazis and yes, they have this great prologue to give you some history about the time and stuff like that. Mason- Yeah, a lot of history I didn't actually know. Even in my head, Finland being connected to Russia is like, oh, oh, okay. Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Mason- But I mean, that in itself is, if you're into war films, a huge historical point of reference for a lot of were deadlocked. The Soviets were deadlocked with the Nazis for so long. The winters were apparently gruelling. It was supposed to be horrific. So that is a really sort of... Even though the whole war was gruelling, it's a really grim point of where the conflict was happening. So put it on the bristle of that. Yeah. It's just, you really feel like this guy's just living in the wild and he's sanity and civilisation. So when he does cross into any sort of human contact or any sort of civilisation contact, there's a beautiful shot where a town's burning. It looks really impressive. Obviously they're going to have to have CGI'd it, but you sort of feel like this guy has so detached himself from everything going on because he's seen so much atrocity, that these sort of start reminders of, oh my god, this is horrific. added poignance to what is essentially a ridiculously absurd film. There is like an underpinning of poignance and historical poignance. Will Barron I wasn't sure if that was his town or if it was a town. Mason Hickman I wasn't sure, but it was enough to sort of stir some emotion. Again, he's a great actor, the guy. I can't remember his name. Will Barron Yeah, he's very good. He's in all the movies that this director has made, I think. Mason Hickman Yeah, in Rare Exports. Will Barron I've seen, I watched the short, the original short of Rare Exports yesterday, but I haven't seen... the movie. Mason- Jauma Tamila is what he's called. I can remember his name. Mason- Have you seen Rare Exports? Mason- I love Rare Exports. It is one of my favourite Christmas films. Again, it's a Matthew Highton special, isn't it? So this came out, Rare Exports obviously came out in 2010. There's a real wave just before streaming. where international films get these big sort of, a lot of buzz around it. It did really well in festivals and it became a mainstream thing. And I had to wait for the DVD release to come out. And I just loved it because I've always loved the Krampus myth and stuff. And again, really good contained in the action film. This guy, he just knows, he knows what to do with the money he has. Because he's always story focused and it's always, again, that Tarantino, and I use Tarantino as a reference point all the time, but that Tarantino-Rodriga's way of... He clearly knows the films he loved as a kid, and he wants to make them bigger and better. And I think, I wouldn't be surprised after Sisu if this opens him up to, in the same way, you know, Monsters opened up Gareth Edwards to Rogue One. I wouldn't be surprised. with Samuel L. Jackson. Which I've never seen actually. No, I sort of wrote it off as one of those Luke Besson's production company movies that they kind of churn out those like European action movies, some of which are like the transporter and quite good. And then some of which are like from Paris with love with John Travolta and are not, not so good. So I didn't really give it the time of day, but having seen this, I'm tempted to go back and check if it's any good. Mason- Yeah, I'm tempted as well. I remember, when did it come out? It's about 10 years ago, isn't it? Mason- It feels like it could be that long. Part of me is like, no, five years, but it definitely wasn't. It was definitely like 10 years. Mason- I think, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a film touted, even in Star Wars or in MCU, and you suddenly see his name popping up. Yeah, that's sort of the path, isn't it now, of like, okay, this looks like someone who's technically a safe pair of hands will, they're under the guidance of whoever, you know, is the, what do you call them, the big boss, the showrunner of the MCU. The final boss of the MCU. Kevin Feige. Kevin Feige, or James Gunn, I suppose, on the other side of the fence. And then, yeah, maybe one of those Star Wars spin-offs or one of the... Mason. It's the sort of film filmmakers will probably love. In the same way they love things like The Evil Dead when it came out and stuff. I think it's such a, in the worst point of humanity way, such a joyous, fun film. Angus. It is fun in a way, but it's not the sort of fun that, if you don't like blood and guts. Mason. It's not jingle all the way. It's not Jiggle. It's not even Violent Night. It's a little bit more grisly. Mason- Yeah, it's grisly. But again, something that I meant to pick up on early as well is something you sort of pointed out is it's so well done. Like a lot of these films we get coming through, especially at the lower end, they don't have the money to finish them. Because they sound six million, the effects are so, so embedded in. There's such a combination of physical light in, physical smoke and stuff like that. mixed with some CGI and it's just seamless. It's incredible. Mason- Yeah. I think that's the sort of budget where you're like, okay, we can afford good CG. I mean, I suppose it depends what you spend the rest of the money on, but I think when you're working at like... a million sub a million around there. It's like, well, we kind of need as much money as we can to film everything. So the CG's got like, well, that'll have to do. Whereas yeah, this is just sort of the sweet spot of we've got enough to deliver the physical stuff, make the movie look great. And also we've, we've, we've got enough in the budget for the few CG shots to not look janky, which is, which is pleasing, especially since there is a plane and things on fire. and underwater. I don't think underwater is CG, but it's not Avatar. We'll get to this in the action replay. Oh, no way! That was my one! You can have that one because I have loads. Should we do that now? Let's head into some action replays. Like you said, and I had this exact same thought, this is a movie that is basically wall to wall action replays. Because it's sort of, oh, I read this actually. I forget who said this and maybe numerous people have said it. Was it Mark Twain who once said it? You're right. It was Mark Twain who said this. This is like a slasher movie, but the slasher is the good guy. It's like a reverse slasher movie, right? So it's sort of a... series of set pieces of people being murdered in inventive, ingenious ways. Mason- It's that interesting. I never thought of that. Steele- Every single set piece is basically an action replay because it's like, well, how is he going to kill this bunch of Narts? Mason- Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that is the thing, is set pieces. They have clearly gone, right, we're doing, this is the location. What is the one thing we can do in this place that is incredible? Steele- Yeah. you've got the Establisher, he's just hand to hand. Then you've got the minefield. It's like different levels, right? It's the minefield level, the water level, the fire level, the plane level. Yes, it's great. Mason- Are you going to go with the underwater one then? Jason- That is the first one that came to mind when I was- Mason- I've never seen this in a film before. Jason- I didn't. Well, you watched it in the last few days, whereas I watched it maybe two weeks ago, and I didn't get a chance to skim back through it on streaming. So the one that I remembered, because when I saw it on the big screen in the cinema where I watched it, did I mention that was in Mumbai? I had just never seen this before. Is it a spoiler? This is what happens. He jumps into some, well, also the bit before it... He sets himself on fire to stop dogs attacking him and then jumps into the water. Ingenious. This is where it starts getting into the realms of, they say he's immortal. He probably should be dead a lot by now. Anyway, so he's underwater, right? And if he pops up, they're going to shoot him because he's in a lake. They can just shoot him in the face. then the slightly comic-ness of it is like the super-evil mega-Nazi. Every time there's a situation where some people are clearly going to die, like a minefield, he just picks two of his underlings and goes, you guys walk out into the minefield. And similarly, he goes, you go in the boat and you get him even though he has killed a number of us. A couple of Nazis. Really? Hello, hello, you're a Nazi. That's where I get all my accent work is based on. Hello, hello. All European accents. Nazis jump in the water, right? He murders them in the water, right? My action replay is this because I've never seen it in a movie. And I suspect if I'm actually a scientist. was to evaluate this. I'm not sure it would hold up. Every time I listen to this podcast I was like, just give us your actual workplace. Get to it mate, come on! Right, he's underwater, he can't breathe, he can't stick his head up. How's he going to survive? He can't get one of those little reeds and stick it out like Arnie does in Predator. So he cuts a Nazi's throat and then he puts his mouth on the cut open throat and quote unquote, air out of the dead Nazi's lungs. It's incredible. I laughed out loud because I've never seen anything like it. I laughed out loud as well because it was so... I'm not sure though. Are the lungs actually full of breathable air or by that time it's carbon dioxide? They did it in Baywatch a few times actually. Where they blow air into the... No, where Mitch Buchanan cut someone's throat. Cut someone's throat! In order to survive. I don't remember the episode where Pamela Anderson goes on a killing spree in Baywatch. To survive, Simon. You're thinking of Baywatch Nights. It was a little bit darker. There's Nazis down in the bay. Slow motion Nazis being chased across the beaches. Incredible episode. My action replay was that because I wish there'd been 100 people in the cinema so we could all have made the same reaction that I did. Also, just to point out on this film, that is one of two times where having a good lung capacity saves this guy's life. the other one. Where he is hung Simon. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. That was, that was the bit where I was like, okay, we are really, we're really pushing the suspension of disbelief. Okay. That is my, that is my action replay moment. Yeah. What is yours? You knew there are still, you know, I'm sorry if I bagzied the best one, but there's still about nine more. Like you said, every kill is paused and rewound when you're a 12 year old child, to just continually watch that. The ones that stick out in my head, there's two that really just jump out. The first one, the first kill, is incredible because it is so fast and so visceral. just kills a guy so quick. But I mean, the one that is in the trailer, at least the setup to the kill, and it's just... He throws a landmine at someone. Which I don't think you could physically do. I think it would go off. Mason- In fairness, that is my suspension of disbelief alarm. Should have maybe gone off earlier in the movie, but I was enjoying it too much. comes out the smoke of a previous landmine and just boom, into the face of a waiting netty. And that is the moment where you realise, because the kill before that has been quite realistic, it's been quite gritty, you go, yeah, this is ridiculous. Mason- That's the moment when you know what the movie is, isn't it? I think, yeah. When you're like, okay, okay, let me just quickly change the dial here so that we're on the same page. Yeah, there's a car in space, Fast 9. Okay, my dial needs really shifting. Yeah, but that, that, and you know what? Just for a bit of, it's not all gris and grime, just seeing a dog in a sidecar, it's never going to, never going to not be fun. That's allowed to be an action replay in a way, isn't it? Just a heartwarming action replay. Maybe we should have a different term and jingle for nice, nice action replays. Heartwarming moment of the film. There you go. Love it. Yeah. We could pick a whole bunch of other moments in this movie that are grisly bone crunching and sort of whoop inducing. But we have to leave some for you to discover for yourselves. Yeah. I think there's no doubt that this is getting an absolute recommend from the Dodge This collective. Two severed thumbs up. to Nazi thumbs going up. No, a thumb up. Will Barron I don't think we should have a rate insistent on this. It's measuring Nazi thumbs. Let's just keep regular thumbs. Mason Fierce My thumb was going down into... Will Barron That's 10 Nazi gold bars out of... Mason Fierce Yeah, I did like Dodge This as a podcast, be of a turn in season two when the rating system seems to be Nazi related. Will it be down the war crime scale? All right, my thumbs up was just going to be the T-800 going into the molten metal. Okay. Why did you make it sad? That's like a heartwarming thumbs up, isn't it? It's the heartwarming moment of the film. What happened to you, Simon in Mumbai? Why are you broken? That was not even LOLO territory, but I liked it. Barney's accent is pure LOLO in fairness. If you didn't know, you'd think he was making that accent up. I think that's a good point to end the podcast. It feels like a good bit, doesn't it? Hey, thanks so much for listening to Dodge This. We'll be back in a number of weeks' time. Days, months, we don't know. In the next few weeks, as soon as something action worthy hits our screens. In the meantime, please follow us on all the socials linked in the pod notes, leave us a review, etc. Mason- Yeah, please do recommend review. We want to grow as does everyone. We want to get to the point where you have to listen to a Squarespace advert at the beginning. or Athletic Greens or Squarespace halfway through the podcast. We're happy to push that actually. Angus I really would be delighted actually. Mason Yeah. Share, recommend. If you're new here, go back, listen to the others and check out the films because we try to pick films that we want you to watch. So yeah, do watch them. Angus In an ideal world, and I would say with almost 100% there's not a film I would say just don't watch it. I would say pick a film you want to watch, watch it and then listen to the bloody pot about it afterwards. I'm hoping you just fade it out now. Oh God, I faded out about an hour ago, mate. So much waffle on Absolute Tree. All right, see you in the next one. Bye. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.