Terrorists storm the nation's capital during the Independence Day celebrations and take hostages that include the president, as well as other diplomats and personalities. The plot of Olympus Has Fallen Again? No, it's Attack on Finland, based on the novel “6/12” by Ilkka Remes, the Finnish equivalent of Tom Clancy. And given the current political climate, where better to set an international thriller than Finland?
EJPO agents Sylvia Madsen and her associate Markus 'Max' Tanner break into a supposedly empty house in Estonia to obtain evidence against a Russian cybercriminal Leonid Titov (Juhan Ulfsak, The Last Ones, Tenet ). Unfortunately, they got some bad information, and as a result, Sylvia ends up shooting and killing Leonid's young son.
Fast forward a bit and the controversial Jean Morel (Zijad Gracic, Wasn't Afraid to Die, Children of the Fall), an old friend of President Koskivuo (Robert Enckell, Dual, Devil's Bride) is coming to Finland for the Fall Day ceremonies. Independence. and Sylvia is assigned to be his bodyguard. When the terrorists take over the building, she is trapped inside. And Max is appointed to lead the negotiations. But it soon becomes clear that there are even deeper and darker motives for the attack than first appeared.
In addition to introducing us to Max and Sylvia and their professional and personal relationship, it also introduces us to Vasa Jankovic, whose father is in custody for an unspecified crime that he swears he did not commit. Anya (Nika Savolainen, Goodbye Soviet Union, The Unknown Soldier) recruits him for the plot, but we are not given any motive or other background, which adds more mystery to the plot of Attack on Finland.
And the Attack on Finland plot, while certainly current, either by design or lucky timing, but nothing new as the involvement of war criminals, cybercriminals and the Russians quickly becomes apparent and disagreements develop between Max and their superiors on how to handle the situation. . And just as problematic, disagreements break out among the kidnappers as well.
For a director whose credits list is loaded with drama, Louhimies does a good job of building the suspense and keeping Attack on Finland tight. Granted, some scenes could have been trimmed down a bit. Longer scenes of soldiers crawling through tunnels and corridors aren't always better, after a while the tension wears off. He said that he made some changes to the novel to help him control it and, although I don't know which ones, they seemed to have worked.