A police officer evacuates a family from their London flat. “An old bomb’s been discovered on a building site nearby,” he says. “Could it, like, blow any minute?” the construction site gaffer asks. “Theoretically, yes,” says the army major charged with preventing just that. “Is it like a big bomb, like a biggie?” a second cop asks. “Yes.” It’s a “thousand-pounder,” World-War-Two bomb hit while excavating foundations for the type of high-rise office building which comes with a pre-installed “Pret” sandwich bar in the lobby.
“Fuze” (Sky Original Films), showing now at the Montrose Playhouse, is an up-to-date, Netflixy heist with sharp aerial photography of Paddington—home of the Bear and the finest train station in the U.K.—and a decent haul of stars. It is a bright summer’s day. The bomb is found near the station. Many authorities take charge of each other. There is a “situation room” where every desk sports at least three computer monitors; surveillance cameras which poke into every square centimetre of the zone; uniformed police who are allotted official-sounding code names such as “Alpha Hotel Two-Seven”; and continuous-beat music. We are smack in the middle of the genre. “Cordon secure, you are authorised to proceed,” Chief Superintendent Zuzana, played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw, tells the major, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson.
A bank heist commences nearby. The gang wear orange-hi-vis boilersuits of the kind worn by engineers fixing railway tracks around Montrose (they are actually posing as an industrious water-company maintenance crew). The power supply is cut; luckily the hoods stashed a generator inside a recycling skip earlier. “Alright boys, let’s get a move on,” boss Karalis, played by Theo James, says. “Quietly.” Has Chief Superintendent Zuzana spied them already? “Hold it there, Tony, go to thermal,” she says. It’s a fox. Still, she dispatches a police cruiser. “Do a quick sweep of the cordon, please.” “There’s nothing going on out here,” the patrol officer says. “It looks like the apocalypse.”
Back on the building site, something’s up with the bomb. “It’s a bit more complicated,” the major says. “Did you hear that, dudes? Time fuse.” Seconds later, “It’s ticking! There’s a second fuse and it’s active.” “The major will deploy a magnetic clock stopper to inhibit the fuse.” He will also build a mitigation wall. “This could take up to five hours,” he says. “It would be great if we could get some pizza in.” The food arrives. “I didn’t know what to get so I got everything on the menu.” But one of the major’s more lively underlings smells a rat. “Sir, I really think you should come and take a look at this,” the corporal says. “There’s a shiny bit.” He peers at the bomb. “The whole thing should be rust.” But the major tells him to wind his neck in. “Permission to speak, sir?” “No,” the major says. “Keep your head down.” An army general scuttles in to take the major to task. “You’re reluctant to involve seniors when it comes to decision making,” he says. He cites a previous charge of insubordination. The corporal raised the phoney bomb up the flagpole. “Could you have reported the anomaly earlier?”
The heist recalls both “The Italian Job” movies—starring Michael Caine (1969), and Mark Wahlberg (2003). The gang crack, chainsaw, and crowbar their way into the vault where they leave everything heavy behind (including a stash of gleaming gold bars) and just make off with cash, jewellery, and diamonds. (Diamonds are popular in heists—they also starred in “Now You See Me: Now You Don’t,” which I received in November.) The filmmakers light the vault with flashlights set into the boilersuit breast pockets, Halloween-style. “Cops! Cops! Cops!” Karalis is caught red-handed as he dives out of his hidey-hole behind a dumpster. “Non-compliant white male!” the cop bellows into his walkie-talkie. “Stick to the plan,” Karalis says—pursued by a cruiser through an underground parking garage into London’s sewage pipes. “Got the stench to prove it,” he says when he rejoins his co-conspirators.
The buoyant first hour follows the well-worn path of London-based “cops-and-robbers” movies from a time gone by, such as “The Long Arm,” a black-and-white film starring Jack Hawkins from 1956. These films have moral certainty—the police are the good guys and the subjects are on their side. “Fuze” could have kept up the focus on good-cop Gugu Mbatha-Raw, played out the chase—for one reason or another, the opportunity to shoot an iconic getaway via Paddington Station and InterCity trains is missed—and maintained control of the pace of the story. But the film fumbles. “Let’s take [Karalis] to the workshop,” says an over-stereotyped, Bond-like villain (Russian accent, huge ring on left pinkie, shot of vodka before the interrogation, hammer). The padded cast becomes a liability; the audience’s eyes glaze over while striving to keep up with the chain of dupes and double-crosses; and the stab at a Bond/Bourne segue is fidgety. A late scene in Istanbul feels bolted-on rather than value-adding.
The biggest laugh at the Playhouse came when the bandits emptied their pockets of various bits and bobs they had filched for themselves. One by one they get greedy. A thud; one drops a thick wad of cash onto the table. “Just something for my mum,” he says. When the police officer finally barges into the crime scene, he reports that a “massive hole [has] been drilled through the wall. Repeat. I’m reporting a bank robbery. A massive bank job on Edgware Road!”
Adam Poole
6th April 2026
If you are interested in viewing this screening, please book your tickets here
