FUZE Reviewed by GREG KING
Director: David Mackenzie
Stars: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Sam Worthington, Theo James, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Saffron Hocking, Alexander Arnold, Honor Swinton Byrne, Luke Mably, Iain Fletcher, Samuel Oatley.
A construction crew working in London uncover an unexploded WWII bomb. An army specialist bomb squad led by Major Will Tranter (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is called in to defuse it. A massive police operation under Chief Superintendent Zuzana (Gugu Mbatha-Raw, from Motherless Brooklyn, etc) closes down the surrounding area, evacuating all the local businesses and residents, moving everyone to the safety of a nearby park. Using CCTV and drones, Zuzana observes and directs events from her command post. Then Tranter discovers that the bomb has a timing device attached.
While all this unfolds, a team of opportunistic bank robbers led by Karolis (Theo James, from the Divergent series, etc) and X (Sam Worthington) take advantage of the chaos and break into the underground vault of a local bank. They help themselves to a fortune in cash, jewellery and diamonds.
But in this clever script from writer Ben Holland (a filmmaker in his own write who directed Simon Magus, etc) nothing is quite what it seems, and the robbery does not go without its complications.
A tense, pulpy but slickly constructed British heist thriller, Fuze contains a couple of twists that even the most seasoned lovers of thrillers won’t see coming. The film starts off with a strong hook but becomes a little formulaic as it unfolds.
Muscular direction from David Mackenzie (Hell Or High Water, etc) keeps things moving along nicely. He handles the material with confidence, juggling the various narrative strands as he ratchets up the tension and he moves seamlessly between the locations. He uses a mix of CCTV footage and satellite imagery to ensure that the situation can be easily followed. It has all been deftly edited together by Mackenzie’s regular collaborator Matt Mayer, who shapes the material into a cohesive narrative. Fuze has been nicely shot by cinematographer Giles Nuttgens (another regular collaborator) who captures some eerie vision of the empty streets of the neighbourhood, giving the film an almost surreal feel.
Taylor-Johnson has a strong presence and brings a no-nonsense style to his role as Tranter. James brings a ruthless quality to his performance as the duplicitous brains behind the heist. Worthington is strong and suitably enigmatic.
Fuze is a crowd-pleasing thriller that is well worth catching in the cinema.
★★★☆
