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| Is Bank Al Muraqabah Real? Fuze Filming Location and True Story Explained |
Bank Al Muraqabah may look like the sort of London institution that has been quietly guarding its secrets for decades, but there is one fairly important catch: the bank in Fuze is entirely fictional. David Mackenzie’s thriller drops viewers into a chaotic London after an unexploded Second World War bomb is found near Paddington Basin, forcing an evacuation around Edgware Road. With much of the area suddenly deserted, a group of thieves sees an opportunity to break into a nearby bank. Unfortunately for them, empty streets do not necessarily mean nobody is watching.
In the film, that bank is Bank Al Muraqabah, a fictional institution created specifically for Ben Hopkins’ screenplay. Although it is presented as being located along Edgware Road, there is no real Bank Al Muraqabah operating there. The name, location and role in the story were all designed around the film’s increasingly complicated plot, rather than lifted from an existing London bank.
That is probably for the best, because the filmmakers clearly wanted the bank to function as more than somewhere for people to wear gloves and make increasingly questionable decisions. Mackenzie’s original idea was to combine two very different thriller ingredients: a bomb-disposal situation and a bank heist. Put them together, add a city-wide evacuation and suddenly an ordinary-looking financial building becomes the perfect place for a very bad day.
Even the name Bank Al Muraqabah has a little more going on than it initially appears. Its Persian-origin wording roughly conveys the idea of “watchfulness”, which fits rather neatly with a story built around surveillance, suspicion and people trying very hard not to be noticed. It is the sort of detail that sounds clever without screaming, “LOOK, THIS NAME HAS A SYMBOLIC MEANING,” which is probably the better approach.
The film does, however, have a faint connection to something that actually happened in London. On 1 August 2024, police responded to reports of a suspected robbery at Arab National Bank on Curzon Street in Mayfair, with witnesses reportedly describing people arriving on motorbikes and shots being heard. Police subsequently recovered what was suspected to be a firearm and arrested a man on suspicion of robbery, while Curzon Street was closed as officers dealt with the situation.
There are obvious similarities between that incident and what unfolds around Bank Al Muraqabah, particularly the presence of a bank, a police response and a London street suddenly becoming rather less convenient for everyone nearby. But the resemblance should not be overstated.
There is no clear indication that the real incident inspired Fuze, and the differences are substantial. The film's central heist is deliberately tied to the evacuation caused by the unexploded bomb, while the real-life incident was a separate event.
Location-wise, there is another clue that Bank Al Muraqabah was never intended to be a straightforward recreation of a real institution. Edgware Road and Curzon Street are roughly two miles apart, while the film's bank exists mainly to connect its two central threats.
The bomb creates the unusual conditions, and the fictional bank provides the target. One plot conveniently creates the perfect excuse for the other. Hollywood, apparently, has discovered that a city evacuation can be excellent for business if your business happens to involve breaking into a vault.
The production also avoided relying on a single real bank location. The interior vault sequences were reportedly filmed inside a warehouse in Bow, East London, allowing the production team considerably more freedom to construct the spaces needed for the story. Meanwhile, scenes around Rahim’s neighbourhood were filmed on Connaught Street in Tyburnia. The clever part is that the film does not necessarily give viewers enough of the locations in one continuous view to make the geography immediately obvious.
That approach helps sell Bank Al Muraqabah as a genuine London institution. A convincing exterior here, a carefully constructed interior there, and suddenly viewers can believe this mysterious bank has been sitting somewhere off Edgware Road for years. In reality, its existence belongs entirely to Fuze’s fictional world. The production’s use of real London streets simply gives that fictional world enough texture to feel uncomfortably close to reality.
There is also something amusingly appropriate about a film inventing a bank called “The Watchfulness” and then putting it in the middle of a story where practically everyone is watching everyone else. The thieves are watching the evacuation, the authorities are watching the bank, and viewers are watching both groups while waiting for somebody’s carefully prepared plan to collapse. And, naturally, it does not take particularly long before things become considerably more complicated.
As for the film itself, Fuze works best when its two central ideas collide rather than when either one is treated separately. The unexploded bomb gives the heist an unusual backdrop, while the robbery gives the bomb storyline a ticking sense of consequence. That combination makes the setup more entertaining than another straightforward vault job. The fictional bank also benefits from not being tied too closely to an actual institution, because the filmmakers can bend its layout, security and surroundings around the needs of the thriller.
My take is that the premise is much stronger than it first sounds. A deserted London created by a bomb scare becoming an accidental playground for thieves is wonderfully cynical, and there is a dry absurdity to how everyone thinks they have found the perfect opportunity at precisely the moment when the situation is becoming less predictable. The film does not need Bank Al Muraqabah to be real because its purpose is to make the wider situation feel plausible. If anything, knowing it is fictional makes the construction of the story more interesting.
It is a made-up bank placed inside very recognisable London surroundings, allowing Fuze to borrow the city's credibility without being chained to reality. It is not perfect, and some of its twists may ask viewers to accept a little cinematic convenience, but as a thriller setup, it has enough personality to keep things moving. Basically, if your brilliant heist plan depends on an entire London neighbourhood being evacuated, perhaps have a backup plan. Preferably several.
particularly because the film deliberately mixes a grounded London setting with an increasingly elaborate thriller premise. Some viewers may enjoy the unusual combination of the bomb-disposal storyline and the bank break-in, while others could find the plotting a little too neatly engineered. The fictional status of Bank Al Muraqabah is unlikely to be a major problem for most audiences, though, because the production does a convincing job of making it look like part of the city.
The more interesting question is whether viewers buy into the film’s twists once the two storylines begin crashing into each other. Did Bank Al Muraqabah convince you that it was a real London bank, or did the fictional setup give itself away? And did Fuze’s central twist work for you? Share your take, because this is one of those thrillers where the post-film argument may be almost as entertaining as the film itself.