‘Fuze’ is a highly immersive British thriller built around what initially seems like a straightforward scenario: an unexploded wartime bomb is discovered on a construction site in London, forcing the area into lockdown while a military unit is brought in to defuse it. But all is not what it seems. Within the sealed-off zone, a jewellery heist unfolds, and although the two situations appear unrelated at first, it gradually becomes clear that there is a connection – one that stretches back to British military involvement in Afghanistan more than a decade earlier.

It feels like the sort of film you could easily imagine starring Jason Statham or even directed by Guy Ritchie. In many ways, it operates as two familiar genres running in parallel: the tense military operation and the intricately planned heist. Both are staples of British cinema, but here they are cleverly juxtaposed, with the tension between them never really letting up.

What works particularly well is the editing, which cross-cuts between the two strands with precision, maintaining a constant sense of unease. There are moments of near silence where we expect an explosion, and others where the action escalates rapidly, keeping us off balance. With multiple teams involved, the film continually raises questions: who can be trusted? Is anyone double-crossing anyone else? And what will the consequences be?

The film plays on our assumptions. When we see the army dealing with a bomb, we instinctively trust that they know what they’re doing; when we see a heist, we assume a certain structure and hierarchy among those involved. But here, those expectations are gradually undermined as further layers are revealed, often only after the fact, giving the story a sense of shifting ground.

The most striking touch comes at the end. Where many films might opt for a “ten years later” epilogue, this instead rewinds to “ten years earlier”, forcing us to reinterpret everything we’ve just seen. It’s a clever narrative move that adds an extra dimension to what might otherwise have been a more conventional thriller.