Fuze

No one can be trusted. No one is assured of their survival. We don’t even know who we should be rooting for––beyond the filmmakers themselves, in hopes they stick the landing.

The film prizes style, but has no higher ambition than to entertain, with an economy of means and no fussy pretension. That’s a noble mission, especially in this time of auteur worship, when so many genre movies seem determined to be something more.

Even as Fuze is not a great film, let alone one that will be remembered as a classic new take on the genre, it’s an endlessly watchable one.

The action is entertaining enough in the moment, but not especially memorable.

The film struggles to find an effective core focus that ties all the narratives together in a cohesive and entertaining manner. Ultimately, Fuze lacks the precision in its writing to make the twists and turns worthwhile.

Seeking to be a nonstop adrenaline jolt, Fuze starts off strongly but eventually fizzles, its high-octane ambitions soon becoming mechanical and rote.

While there’s something engaging in how the film takes us to a place so, literally, far from where we started, how we get there is not as entertaining or propulsive as it should be with anonymously staged action, easy-to-spot twists and a crucial lack of suspense.