Fuze

Rating 6/10

A wartime relic from the Blitz becomes the fuse for something else entirely.

Say hello to another heist thriller that aspires to the pantheon of classics, alongside Heat and Inside Man.  Fuze takes its title from military terminology, hinting at a device engineered and ready to detonate.  One wrong move could set everything off.  David Mackenzie (Hell or High Water) is a proven director who sets the expectation for a character-driven story.  In this saga, the people matter as much as the crime itself.  The cast includes Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Theo James, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and Sam Worthington, a group of proven actors who may not be traditional box office draws but bring the kind of intensity a premise like this needs.

It all begins with a discovery that brings London to a halt.  An unexploded WWII bomb is uncovered in the heart of the capital.  An Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) technician, Major Will Tranter (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), races against the clock to prevent a catastrophe.  Overseeing the escalating crisis is Chief Superintendent Zuzana (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), coordinating the tense operation across the evacuation zone.

Ah, but that’s only the beginning.  In the shadow of the lockdown, Karalis (Theo James) is a thief who orchestrates a bank robbery amidst the chaos.  He’s backed by his right-hand man, X (Sam Worthington).   On the ground, Sergeant Dootsie Keane (Saffron Hocking) is part of the military unit tasked with containing the threat.  As this unfolds, Rahim (Elham Ehsas) is an Afghan immigrant living in London.  He and his elderly parents get caught up in the evacuation.  What begins as a race to defuse a threat quickly spirals into a clash between the authorities trying to contain a disaster and criminals exploiting it in real time.

Fuze works because it keeps reinventing its own plot.  Just as you settle in, it shifts gears to keep your attention.  At first, it plays like a straight bomb-disposal thriller, tight and procedural, all about whether Major Will Tranter can defuse the explosive before it blows up.  Then it pivots into a heist movie, with Karalis and his crew exploiting the chaos in a way that feels both clever and opportunistic.  And just when you think you’ve settled into that rhythm, it shifts again.  The drama involves a puzzle of loyalties and allegiances.

It’s one of those “who are we even rooting for?” movies, where the movie nudges you to root for characters you probably shouldn’t.  It works in the moment.  The constant shifting of perspective keeps the narrative unpredictable and entertaining as you watch.

But once it’s over, it dissolves into a shrug.  The mechanics are clever, sure, but they’re also preposterous.  The whole thing hinges on a chain of coincidences and perfectly executed decisions that only work if you don’t look at them too closely.  It’s about characters being in exactly the right place at exactly the right moment.  I went with it.  I suspended disbelief, bought into the ride, and had a good enough time.  That surprised me.  Somewhere along with the stolen diamonds, it also swiped my common sense.