Fuze Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Fuze Blu-ray Movie Review

Someone set us up the bomb.

Reviewed by Randy Miller III September 23, 2026

A pretty slick little heist film from the director of Hell or High Water, Fuze starts out as a suspenseful thriller that takes obvious cues from Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker. It soon pivots into equally recognizable Heat-influenced territory but confidently sprints through the bulk of its 96-minute running time, which speeds by quick enough to distract from a few silly moments while the well-staged action and suspense supersedes its mostly unremarkable characters. This is no masterpiece, but Fuze delivers its fair share of twists and turns that should keep first-time viewers hooked.

Fuze begins with a startling discovery at a construction site in London that quickly has workers and their supervisors scrambling for help. What could have been a dead body, a mass grave, or even a supernatural object turns out to be an unexploded bomb believed to be from World War II, so the military and police are quickly called in for assistance while everyone within a one-mile radius is evacuated. Major Will Tranter (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and his team coordinate with local authorities, led by Chief Superintendent Zuzana Greenfield (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), and the former take quick action by setting up a protective wall and attempting to defuse the bomb before they discover a timed trigger, necessitating the use of a magnetic "clock stopper" to disable it. This seems to work, at least temporarily.

During the ordeal, certain questions about the bomb's construction arise, largely posed by astute but meek Corporal Martin (Alexander Arnold), and one design peculiarity even suggests that the bomb itself may not be authentic. Soon enough, it becomes apparent that said device -- which, genuine or not, is still dangerous -- might actually be a planned distraction for what's really going on: the nearby Bank Al Muraqabah is secretly being raided by a highly coordinated team of four men led by Giorgos "George" Karalis (Theo James). No one's around to stop them, of course, but a police drone monitoring the area picks up the team's heat signature, which is first believed to be apartment occupants who neglected to leave the area. The truth comes out, but it may be too late to catch them.

Working against the clock of a still-active bomb and a group of heavily armed mystery robbers, Fuze attempts to pull double duty in the suspense department but doesn't do so for very long. It's not exactly a major spoiler to say that one of these problems is more or less resolved before the halfway point and, while this briefly deflates Fuze's momentum, it still allows the remaining problem to gradually marinate while keeping tension levels reasonably high.

As a fairly low-budget thriller that's confined to just a few claustrophobic square miles, Fuze does a very capable job with its limited resources. The characters are largely one-note, with three of the four robbers given aliases such as "X" (Sam Worthington), "Y" (Shaun Mason), and "Z" (Nabil Elouahabi) and there's barely any meat for the men and women pursuing them either… but that's not a problem since Fuze has enough twists and turns to make up for that, and there isn't tons of room for colorful scenery-chewing anyway. What it does have is decently well-staged action and palpable bursts of suspense, meaning that raw momentum keeps it largely afloat from start to finish… and though that may not translate to endless re-watches (especially since portions of its third act feel a little sloppy by comparison), Fuze works well enough in the moment to feel like a worthy genre entre that might even surprise you.

Sony's new MOD (pressed) Blu-ray edition of Fuze is a scant movie-only disc, one with good A/V merits but no bonus features to help alleviate the studio's typically high price point. This should be a $20 disc at most.

Fuze Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Fuze was delivered to theaters with a 4K digital intermediate but, despite the lack of a 4K option from Sony, this MOD (pressed) BD-50 at least serves up a capable home video alternative for fans to enjoy. Let's get the obvious out of the way: daytime footage under optimal lighting conditions produces extremely strong amounts of fine detail and textures, especially in and around the rough, craggy construction site and other urban locales. Colors are well-represented with a familiar teal-orange combo dominating the basement bank robbery sequence (seen above) and other bold primary and secondary colors looking great with no signs of oversaturation or bleeding, while the Earth-toned construction site and sterile blue police command center split the difference. But there are a handful of moments that reveal signs of slight encoding trouble, such as an underground sewer sequence around the 38-minute mark where black levels pulse and sporadic ghosting and mushy artifacts hamper some of the action. Other extremely dark moments show similar issues, though to a much less noticeable degree, and to be fair these scenes are in the extreme minority; no more than 10-15 minutes of screen time in total, with the rest looking much more appealing in direct comparison.

I'd be willing to bet that a few of these imperfections were baked into the source material, but that's impossible to confirm without the existence of a 4K disc, which would have more easily sidestepped such issues. In any case, this is a largely pleasing presentation that scores just below a 4/5 overall but nut enough to bring it down any further.

Fuze Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio mix is surely original to the theatrical experience, given the (somewhat surprising) lack of an Atmos tag during the end credits, and within those boundaries it delivers a mostly solid sonic experience with the expected amounts of channel panning and discrete effects during key action sequences. The minimal original score by Tony Doogan, perhaps best known for his work with the Scottish music groups Mogwai and Belle & Sebastian, likewise adds slight but palpable tension when the situation demands it. Perhaps my only complaint is that it's mixed noticeably low overall and required an adjustment of at least 5-10dB to bring it closer to my usual listening levels. Beyond that, though, there isn't much room for improvement on this somewhat predictable but satisfying presentation.

Optional English (SDH) subtitles are included during the film, which also includes forced subs for foreign languages.

Fuze Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This one-disc release ships in a keepcase with basic poster-themed cover artwork that makes Fuze look more like a generic action thriller than a decently engaging heist hybrid. Sadly, no extras are included.

Fuze Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

David Mackenzie's Fuze is a compact and capable thriller whose twists, turns, and bursts of well-shot action help to make up for its fairly lackluster characters to deliver 96 minutes of entertainment. I'd recommend it more fully if Sony's new MOD (pressed) Blu-ray had slightly better A/V merits, a 4K UHD option, or perhaps even a few bonus features, as the studio's typically high price point doesn't make this one a solidly recommended blind buy. It could be worth a purchase at the right price, though, so hold off for now unless you've already seen and enjoyed it.