Fuze ** (2026, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Theo James, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Elham Ehsas, Sam Worthington) – Classic Movie Review 13,908

The British 2026 film Fuze is a messy, low-voltage, out-of-control crime action heist thriller with valiant but unconvincing acting and dialogue.

Talented director David Mackenzie’s British 2026 film Fuze is a messy, low-voltage, out-of-control crime action heist thriller with unconvincing acting and dialogue. It is watchable and could have been a contender but it’s an also-ran with a script inventive enough but not smart or clever enough to provide an exciting new take on the traditional Brit crime caper.

There are lots of ingenious twists and turns and surprises (way too many for a 96-minute film), but they don’t count for too much, so they somehow seem unsurprising. Oh, yes, mmm, that’s just happened, next? The film is earnest and conscientious, and there is some well staged action, but it doesn’t involve or take off, so you just don’t care about developments or outcome. There is a most unsatisfying ending too, leaving a flat impression behind. Director David Mackenzie works incredibly hard to keep up some level of interest and momentum, providing some very flashy and even exciting moments. A cast of good actors (not all of them cast ideally) try to carry on valiantly, but the game is up.

What appears to be a World War Two unexploded bomb is discovered by workers on a busy construction site near the Edgware Road in the centre of London, and a UK army major called Will Tranter (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) heads the team trying to disable it, while the police led by Chief Superintendent Zuzana Greenfield (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) cordon off the area and begin a mass evacuation.

[Spoiler alert] Meanwhile, bank robbers Karalis (Theo James), X (Sam Worthington), Hardeep (Naveed Khan) and Z (Nabil Elouahabi) drill underneath and break into a bank in the Edgware Road and steal money and jewellery. The robbers evade the police, effortlessly negotiating the cordon, and escape in a van to a countryside safehouse.

It’s nice that it’s only a taut, fast-moving 96 minutes, but this epic story needs a full two hours to tell properly. Heist thrillers are among the best movies, but they’ve gotta be super-good in a crowded market to grab the audience, much better than this one, even though it does deliver some fresh angles.

The characterisation is paper thin, so we don’t care about the characters, with no home lives or immediate back story to the events to help make them come alive. Theo James probably has the best time as the bank robber Karalis, relishing his villainous role, convincingly nasty. But Sam Worthington has a particularly lean time, totally wasted with not nearly enough to do as the gang’s hardman, Karalis’s right-hand man. He is, however, convincingly hard and tough. The police are female, as otherwise there would be no female main characters, but this doesn’t pay off as a way too nice, young and sincere Gugu Mbatha-Raw is less than commanding or convincing in a role that needs a cynical, grumpy and sarcastic old git to be enjoyable (perhaps like Walter Matthau in The Taking of Pelham 123).

There are lots of high-tech screens, drones and equipment for the London police to relish, but it’s hard to believe the UK force is this sophisticated. It may be, but the film doesn’t make it credible. It’s way too much like a James Bond control set. Meanwhile, Major Will Tranter lives in the 1950s, and uses a hand drill on the unexploded bomb!

Fuze is written by Ben Hopkins. His film Simon Magus entered the Berlin Film Festival in 1999. His other notable films include Lost in Karastan (2014) and Inside (2023) starring Willem Dafoe.

David Mackenzie made the excellent 2016 American neo-Western crime drama film Hell or High Water, also lensed by Giles Nuttgens.

Cast: Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Major Will Tranter, Theo James as Karalis, Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Chief Superintendent Zuzana, Sam Worthington as Karalis’s right-hand man X, Saffron Hocking as Military Sergeant Dootsie Keane. Elham Ehsas as Rahim, Honor Swinton Byrne as Clareese, Naveed Khan as Hardeep and Nabil Elouahabia as Z.

Released: Fuze premiered at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival on 5 September 2025. It was released in the UK and Ireland on 3 April 2026. A wide US release was scheduled for 24 April 2026.

© Derek Winnert 2026 – Classic Movie Review 13,908

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