In central London, an unexploded bomb is discovered in a building site. With the area evacuated and power lines cut, a criminal gang takes the opportunity to stage a daring bank heist.
David Mackenzie is a chameleonic sort of director. Starting his career in his native Scotland with arty films like Young Adam and Hallam Foe, he has since branched out into making a high-concept sci-fi (Perfect Sense), a gritty prison drama (Starred Up), a neo-Western (Hell Or High Water) and a New York-set thriller based around telecommunications devices for the deaf (Relay). Fuze represents another hard turn into new material, a sweaty heist genre film centred around the discovery of a World War II bomb on a building site. But despite a banging drum ‘n’ bass title sequence, complete with a handsome drone tracking shot of London’s skyline, this is in fact a rigidly old-fashioned, defiantly silly, dad-friendly sort of thriller.
It’s all plot and zero character. We know precious little about who these people are or what motivates them, the film seemingly uninterested in backstory until the final third, by which time it gets a bit daft. Our ensemble is introduced in workmanlike fashion: there’s Aaron Taylor-Johnson (essentially playing the same character he played in Tenet with a different accent) as Major Will Tranter, the bomb-disposal specialist called in when an incendiary device is discovered buried in a central London building site. There’s Gugu Mbatha-Raw as the police Chief Superintendent Zuzana, who lives in the obligatory Big Screens control room. And Theo James and Sam Worthington are there too as Karalis and X, respectively, the bank robbers who use the bomb disposal’s evacuation zone and power outage as cover to steal some precious diamonds.
Where this film succeeds is in its fast-cutting tension, evoking the grittiness and violence of a 1970s heist flick.
This is a vastly overqualified cast — Mbatha-Raw and The Souvenir’s Honor Swinton Byrne, as her deputy, seem bussed in from another film — but they just about sell the perfunctory dialogue and businesslike exposition. When the script tries for any kind of flourish or flair, it falls flat. “Don’t be shit,” is the Major’s best advice from his years of experience. “All roads lead to Afghanistan,” notes the Chief Superintendent, without context or reason.
Where this film succeeds is in its fast-cutting tension, evoking the grittiness and violence of a 1970s heist flick. The opening hour, which keeps things contained to a literal ticking time bomb, a tense bank job, and the law enforcement overseeing it all, feel like the film’s strongest suit. It’s almost a shame it doesn’t keep that energy going. Still, Mackenzie’s direction is solidly edgy, continuing the mood he developed so successfully in Relay.
The final ten minutes, and a set of Animal House-style “where are they now?” end title cards, are largely misjudged. But on the whole this is a perfectly fine viewing experience, even if the ending never quite lives up to its sweaty first act promise — better when the fuse is actually lit.
It’s thinner than the paper it’s written on, and full of questionable choices — but in a switch-your-brain-off kind of way, this will adequately activate your heist glands. Light the fuze!
