Riz Ahmed, Lily James Thriller ‘Relay’ Proves To Be A Pleasant Surprise

Tom (Riz Ahmed) meticulously preps his communication gear to avoid unwanted surveillance in the new thriller ‘Relay’.

Courtesy of Bleecker Street

The life of a corporate whistleblower is a miserable one. You attain a certain expert status in your industry after years of hard work. You are given access to corporate secrets and sensitive information. You then discover that your dream employers are suppressing important regulatory information because a merger is in the company’s future, and they can’t have negative environmental, medical, agricultural, etc. data released into the open.

So, you help yourself to a copy of the shady information as an insurance policy, and you become Public Enemy # 1 to your employer. Your career is toast. Your reputation is being trashed. And, by the way, “borrowing” that shady information may very well be a felony. So, when you have second thoughts, and decide it would be prudent to look for the fire exit, what do you do?

In Relay, the new thriller from director David Mackenzie (Hell or High Water), you contact, Ash (played by Riz Ahmed) to negotiate your way out of your dicey situation. Ash is an expert in the world of corporate espionage and helps people who find themselves caught between the corporate devil and the deep blue sea. He keeps things professional and anonymous, going to great lengths to avoid detection or being identified. His value to his clients is his anonymity.

When Ash is contacted by Sarah (Lily James), he finds himself becoming overly invested in her plight. Sarah is being bullied (and surveilled) by her employer after appropriating a copy of a study that shows their genetically-engineered grain may have deadly side effects. Ash’s entire existence is based on not getting personally involved because doing so can easily lead to … mistakes.

Relay is what I refer to as a “pedigree film”. It wasn’t initially on my radar to check out, but when I saw it was from the director of Hell or High Water, one of the best crime films of this century, and stars Riz Ahmed (Oscar nominee for the 2019 film The Sound of Metal), I knew I had to add it to my slate of screenings based solely on the talent involved. My flexibility was rewarded.

Relay is a smart, small-scale espionage film focused on operatives outmaneuvering one another. I won’t reveal the true meaning behind the film’s title because it’s such a clever concept. I kept waiting for the film to collapse into a typical, tired chase thriller with bouts of inept gunplay where expert operatives can’t shoot each other from fifty feet away. But, that moment never really comes. Sure, the film builds to an inevitable shootout style climax, but on-screen violence is never the focus of the narrative. Like a good Cold War spy film from years gone by (Three Days of the Condor), Relay is a battle of wits and not a brawl.

As kids head back to school and summer blockbuster season fades away, it’s still a month or two until all the Oscar hopefuls begin hitting theaters. Late August and early September can become a bit of a dumping ground at your local multiplex. Relay is the diamond in the rough that film fans are looking for this time of year.