Fuze: a gripping, unpredictable heist thriller that prizes momentum over depth

An unexploded World War II-era bomb is unearthed early on in the twisty, propulsive Fuze; what gradually becomes apparent is that the men in its radius possess the same hair-trigger volatility. As in his recent thriller Relay (2024), director David Mackenzie derives suspense from an operation’s airtight logistics, but ultimately fallible members. As a military team in central London attempts to temporarily disarm the explosive so they can safely detonate it, the large-scale evacuation and blackout provide the perfect cover for another high-pressure enterprise: a bank heist.

It’s a dynamite premise which the film skilfully wrings tension from by cross-cutting between the delicate, walking-on-eggshells handling of the bomb and the unfettered violence involved in sledge-hammering into a bank vault wall. Fuze’s thrumming score is obtrusive, but the rare moments of unnerving silence are crucial to its atmosphere of impending doom. In one scene, the traffic lights switch colours at such a measured pace that you instinctively brace for the explosion to coincide with green. In another, the camera lingers on a sweaty, heavy-breathing army major (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) hovering above the bomb; just as he gingerly begins to drill into it, the expected blast is replaced with the bang of a metal vault drawer being wrenched open with a lever.

The director has a knack for staging stressful sequences both on the ground and below it, in pitch dark and in broad daylight. While one team has each other’s backs, the other is constantly looking over their shoulders, on-edge at the likelihood of being double-crossed, though writer Ben Hopkins complicates our assumptions of which men fit into which category.

Mackenzie does not often repeat himself – his work ranges from prison dramas to period war films – but Fuze inevitably calls to mind his Oscar-nominated drama Hell or High Water (2016). In that elegiac western, two brothers rob banks – but the banks, with their predatory lending schemes, robbed them first. Fuze’s handling of similar ideas about the kinds of institutions that break men down, however, is perfunctory. The tragedy of a fight for survival is replaced by genre thrills. Characters are all variations on the Tough Guy, and bank schematics matter more than backstories.

The film’s plot strands eventually intersect, only to sprawl out, further and further, introducing new locations, characters, allegiances. Like a getaway driver who knows he can’t afford to slow down, Fuze guns its own engine, understanding that any lull in the action might allow the audience to begin considering its contrivances.

► Fuze is in UK cinemas from Friday 3 April.