“F*ckin’ ell, it’s tickin’,” says a soldier in David Mackenzie’s new film. Indeed, it’s all about to go off in this exquisitely plotted piece of pulp, a high-energy action-thriller that, thanks to the vicissitudes of film distribution these days, follows hard on the theatrical release of Mackenzie’s last film, Relay, which premiered in Toronto this last year. Relay, starring Riz Ahmed, was also a great genre movie, if a little on the long side. There is no fat, however, on the ensemble-driven Fuze, a much more commercial prospect and a surprisingly sophisticated exercise in misdirection, in which bombshell explodes after bombshell.
In fact, it literally begins with an actual bombshell. As the camera flies over contemporary London, it comes to settle on a building site in Paddington Basin, where work has been unexpectedly halted by the discovery of an unexploded World War Two missile. The police call in the bomb squad, who send in one of their best men, Will Tranter (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), to lead the response. Tranter is something of a loner, and right from the start he is presented as something of a rebel, albeit a leader who looks after his men.
While Tranter assesses the situation, the entire area is evacuated and its inhabitants sent off to Hyde Park for the immediate future. At the same time, in a block of flats next door to the Bank of Al Muraqbah on the Edgware Road, a gang of professional thieves are about to spring into action. Though the power in the area has been cut, they have thoughtfully brought their own generator, and while the police are distracted they set to work in the building’s basement, drilling a hole into the bank’s safety-deposit vault.
Mackenzie handles the action so deftly it’s like watching two movies at the same time — one a blue-wire/red-wire bomb disposal movie and the other a heist movie — and, surprisingly, the two genres work surprisingly well together. Both rely on new tech and know-how, the gang being especially well versed in the latter. And unusually for a heist movie, the stakes rise several times in the first 20 minutes (“Could it, like, blow any minute?” asks a construction worker. “Theoretically, yes,” says a dour Tranter.) It’s also darkly funny; instead of saying “Break a leg” the bomb disposal team prefer the more succinct “Don’t be shit”.
When the bomb starts ticking, Tranter fits a clock-stopper and it seems to do the trick. But in the meantime the police put a halt to his efforts when suspicious police officer Zuzani (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) detects a rogue energy source in the area and fears there might be civilian casualties if the bomb goes off.
During a random search of the area, two officers accidentally stumble on a member of the gang posing as a municipal worker in a high-viz boiler suit. The suspect runs, the police give chase, and… Well, that’s about as much it seems polite to reveal about a film that is breathlessly packed with twists and turns, the main one addressing what seems at first sight to be a major plot hole: what did the bank robbers know about the bomb, and when did they know it?
As it all unravels, it morphs out to be a preposterous but glorious shaggy dog story that unfolds a little like The Jokers (1967), one of a handful films directed by the late, unlamented British director Michael Winner that were actually any good. Key to this is a great cast that all know very well what the project is, and special mention must be made of Taylor-Johnson — effectively the film’s hero, but not for the reasons you might think — and Theo James, who co-stars as the gang’s unassuming leader, Karalis. Both play it perfectly straight, which only adds to the enjoyment of a near-perfect people pleaser, and scriptwriter Ben Hopkins is clearly having a field day. “What did you think was gonna happen?” he has Sam Worthington, who plays one of the robbers say. It’s a question you might well be asking yourself once the dust has cleared.
Title: Fuze
Festival: Toronto (Gala Presentations)
Director: David Mackenzie
Screenwriter: Ben Hopkins
Cast: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Theo James, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Sam Worthington, Saffron Hocking, Elham Ehsas
Sales agent: Anton
Running time: 1 hr 38 mins
