Fuze Review

Fuze is a British heist that features an ensemble cast and is directed by Scottish filmmaker David Mackenzie

When a Second World War bomb is uncovered at a construction site, it leads to a large portion of Central London being evacuated by the police. As the army attempts to dispose of the bomb safely, a group of thieves use the emergency as a cover for robbing a bank.

Sky has distributed Fuze in the UK, and like Ferrari, Lee, and Nuremberg, it has earned a theatrical release. The film had a lot of talent. The trailer highlighted that the film was from the director of Hell or High Water, and Mackenzie has made interesting films like Perfect Sense, Starred Up, and Outlaw King. The leads in the film were Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Theo James, who have both been considered candidates to play James Bond, Sam Worthington, star of the Avatar movies, and Loki’s Gugu Mbatha-Raw played a senior police officer.

The film had an excellent opening with a drone shot over London that zooms into a construction site as the bomb is discovered. Mackenzie is a skilled enough director and ensured that tension ran throughout the film. The bomb could explode at any time, or the thieves could be caught if the police did a spot-check. There were obvious questions about what Karalis’ (James) agenda was since he was looking for something specific in the vault. However, it was clearly a film on a tight budget since the few action set pieces were limited.

Fuze was a workmanlike, functional film. Mbatha-Raw’s performance was a great example of this since she was playing the commanding police officer, someone who was a focused professional. It was perfectly fine, but hardly going to be the most challenging role in Mbatha-Raw’s career.

This workmanlike feel extended to the heist itself. Fuze had a unique twist with the bomb being used as a distraction from the heist, but that’s as far as it went. The heist scenes brought memories of other British heist films, i.e. Sexy Beast, The Bank Job, and King of Thieves. It even reminded me of an episode of the ITV action series Ultimate Force. The heist involved a distraction, sound cover from all the alarms going off, and the thieves used an industrial drill to get into the vault. Like all the previously mentioned projects, the heist was being used as a cover to steal a specific item.

Fuze was a film that was dependent on its twists. Some were obvious, like the bomb being planted, and Karalis was using the heist for his own purposes. The film was far from a brainteaser, but it needed the twists to keep the story going because the film was thin on material. It was a film that had three connected stories since the army was securing the bomb, the thieves were robbing a bank, and the police were investigating both crimes.

Finally, I did find the alternative brand names amusing. Amazon was renamed Amazing, there was Greater London Water instead of Thames Water, and Sam Worthington’s character wore a football shirt that says ‘Keane 16’ on the back. Worthington was clearly meant to be a Man Utd fan, but his top didn’t have a Man Utd badge or a sponsor the club had when Roy Keane played for the club. Obviously, the filmmakers couldn’t get the rights to use the real brand names, but it was a notable feature.

As a heist film, it was distinctly average and one of Mackenzie’s weaker films as a director. It would have been more suitable as a straight-to-streaming release.