Hevi Reissu – Heavy Trip

K-12, Finland, March 2018, Director: Juuso Laatio, Jukka Vidgren   Script: Juuso Laatio, Aleksi Puranen, Jari Olavi Rantala, Jukka Vidgren

The author herself was almost part of this movie, yet there were other obligations when they filmed some scenes near Helsinki… But that’s not the only reason why Hevi Reissu (Heavy Trip), the most expensive Finnish comedy so far (3 Mio Euro), is very interesting – it’s the story about a Metal band on the way to a festival…

Surely there are complications a la Spinal Tap – beginning with the fact that nobody in the village takes those 4 Metalheads Turo (Johannes Holopainen), Jynkky (Antti Heikkinen), Pasi (Max Ovaska) and Lotvonen (Samuli Jaskio) seriously. Moreover, the slimy Pop-singer Jouni (Ville Tiihonen) has his eyes on Turo’s love interest Miia (Minka Kuustonen) … But suddenly the first gig outside the Reindeer-infested localities changes everything – and more of the chaos surrounding the band Impaled Rektum should not be revealed …

I had steeled myself to face some clichés like “barely 2-digit Metalhead-IQ” as e.g. in Bill and Ted. And yes, there were lots of clichés, except that one – those guys are not stupid, just a bit socially challenged and outside of this quite cliché-village environment. Yet there’s this tongue-in-cheek attitude about stereotypes and clichés going borderline absurd and triggering LOL moments – my fave Pasi for example… I have to assume that actual Metalheads wrote the script as too many jokes hit the bull’s eye…

The film was made in Finnish and Norwegian language but there should be an English version available for the international market, see clip below. Still some Finnish humor might get lost in translation as well as cultural references – e.g. it is Finnish Punk legend and Eppu Normali front man Martti Syrjä playing Lotvonen’s dad. Still, I bet there are several situations Metalheads outside Finland have actually experienced in real life, maybe not in such absurd manner…

An international audience might enjoy those awesome landscapes a lot, and surely this great music by Lauri Porra (u.a. Stratovarius) and Mika Lammassaari (Mors Subita, Wolfheart). Such “Symphonic Post-Apocalyptic Reindeer-Grinding Christ-Abusing Extreme-War Heathen Fenno-Scandinavian Metal” could actually appeal to a lot of Metalheads out there…

Summing up, a must-see, go and check it out!