We get to know the key players in the police and army teams as the story and its backdrop unfold. It is going to be hard to review this without spoilers, but the best way to head into it is to suspect everyone of some sort of involvement!
The police evacuate the area so nobody gets hurt, but we see that there are four men in a flat who are lying low and ignoring the evacuation order. When the coast is clear, they leap up and put into action what is clearly a very well-planned bank heist, tunneling between the cellar of the block of flats and the vault of the bank next door. They have all the drilling equipment and power they need, even when the authorities cut the local grid for safety reasons relating to the bomb. This isn't really a spoiler, as all of this happens in the first 10 minutes as we jump feet-first into the action!
Chief Superintendent Zuzana Greenfield, played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Belle, Beauty and the Beast), is in charge and liaising closely with the Major in order to keep the public safe and let his team get on with defusing the device. As the Major inspects the bomb, it becomes clear that it's not just a simple WWII relic after all, but rather a highly complex device with a live trigger. Putting two and two together, it doesn't take much brainpower to work out that something fishy is going on between the two scenes of action!
Anyway, the Major tries all sorts of technical tricks to slow down or stop the timer from ticking down, buying him time to find another way into it. Meanwhile, we get to know the robbers a little: Karalis (Theo James), a cool diamond expert, alongside muscle-and-tech guys code-named X (Sam Worthington), Y (Shaun Mason), and Z (Nabil Elouahabi). With the surrounding streets completely abandoned, the guys are free to go about their crooked business.
However, Zuzana is no fool. She spots the heat signature of a generator (which the robbers are using) on the overview maps on her screens and starts to smell a rat. That's it now - no more spoilers from me, because the rest of the film twists and turns, keeping you on the edge of your seat with chases through the streets and sewers of London and loads more as the plot unfolds. Yes, of course, it's extreme and far-fetched, but it's all good fun - an action-adventure yarn taken to the extreme!
The tale all comes together in the final act as we find out who's who, how people are involved, the extended network of characters in the mix, and, ultimately, who gets away with what - if anything or anyone! It's chaotic in the end, with car chases and nasty people doing nasty things to one another amidst the realisation that pretty much all of what has gone before wasn't quite as it was presented! We also get some flashbacks in the final scene to fill in the missing links that hold the story together.
It's rip-roaring fun, well-directed, produced, and shot. The acting is pretty good from all the players and, far-fetched escapism though it might be, it's a great thrill-ride that I can't imagine anyone not enjoying for its 100-minute runtime. Well worth a look, and it's now just appearing on streaming services in the UK.
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