RELAY: 2 ½ STARS. “A thriller that runs headlong into its suspenseful plot.”
SYNOPSIS: In “Relay,” a new thriller now playing in theatres, Riz Ahmed plays Ash, a “bribe broker” who arranges payments between corrupt corporations and whistleblowers. Mysterious and meticulous, his carefully crafted set of rules go out the window when he falls for a client, former bio-tech company employee Sarah Grant (Lily James). With a high-tech investigation team on her trail, her life is in danger unless Ash can make a deal.
CAST: Riz Ahmed, Lily James, Sam Worthington, Willa Fitzgerald, Matthew Maher, Victor Garber. Directed by David Mackenzie.
REVIEW: A thriller that runs headlong into its suspenseful plot, only to stumble and fall in its last half hour, “Relay” does not stick the landing.
It begins with promise. The idea of a champion for whistleblowers is an intriguing one and as we learn the ins-and-outs of how the secretive Ash runs his business, the movie earns our attention. For instance, Ash, who lives in a shadow world, faceless and nameless, communicates with his clients via the Tri-State Relay Service, which uses an operator who converts text to voice and vice versa. It’s usually reserved for the Deaf community, but, because no records are kept of the transitions Ash uses it as a tamper-proof means of exchange.
It also allows for a running joke in a rather dry movie, as the relay operators sign off every call, no matter how contentious, with “Thanks you for using the Tri-State Relay Service. Have a wonderful day.”
There’s all the stuff of classic conspiracy thrillers; pseudonyms—like Archie Leach, which was Cary Grant’s real name—secret, fortified storage lockers and tense exchanges of information.
That’s all well and good, and director David Mckenzie even stages several twitchy scenes that amp up the suspense. When a set piece in Times Square that should have been a simple exchange of information erupts into chaos, Mckenzie visually captures the chaotic, dangerous nature of Ash’s business.
Later, a concert hall sequence put me in the mind of Brian DePalma, but soon afterwards the carefully constructed cat-and-mouse game falls victim to a plot upheaval—calling it a twist is too mild a term—that is as silly as it is predictable.
It’s a shame that the same film that allows Ahmed the chance to do such layered, interesting work with minimal dialogue chooses to put such a pedestrian cap on a story that began with so much promise.
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