Predictable heist thriller Fuze fails to meet big-screen ambitions

When unexploded World War II ordinance is unearthed in Central London, it triggers a heist thriller that twists and turns predictably but which is never less than entertaining.

First on the scene is jaded bomb squad veteran Major Will Tranter (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), and as police evacuate the neighbourhood, Tranter’s team engages in a nerve-racking display of calm professionalism that is relayed in detailed jargon to the Met’s police chief in her control room (a bland role for Gugu Mbatha-Raw).

Cue the arrival of a gang led by Theo James (The Gentlemen). They have other designs on the deserted city block to which power has been cut.

Screenwriter Ben Hopkins clearly took Hitchcock’s famous advice about showing the audience the ticking bomb in order to create suspense, though his cardboard cutout characters are a United Nations of archetypes. It’s good to see the handsome James swap his usual smooth playboy persona for a South African diamond miner, though Aussie Sam Worthington has spent too much of his career behind the blue CGI of Avatar make-up to really develop his human acting.

Scottish director David Mackenzie (Hell or High Water), meanwhile, delivers a movie that feels like it would be more at home on the small screen, perhaps watched after you’ve finished bomb disposal drama Trigger Point. It’s still intriguing but with only a middling script and serviceable execution; it’s neither Heat nor Line of Duty, two evident influences. There’s a horrible misuse of Mozart’s Requiem during a lacklustre and incoherent climax, before a laughable, seemingly tacked-on epilogue.

On the plus side, however, Fuze does inadvertently serve as a thought-provoking blueprint for the commission of a major crime.

Rating out of five: ★★★