Relay
In David Mackenzie’s surveillance thriller a whistleblower entrusts her life to a mysterious underground agency.
Secret service: Riz Ahmed
Image courtesy of Black Bear Pictures.
by JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
A man walks into a diner. He sits in a corner by the window and, unasked, a waitress places a mug of coffee in front of him. Immediately afterwards, another man walks in, wearing a suit and tie, and sits opposite the first man, who hands him a document. A few words are exchanged, the man in the suit walks out, followed shortly afterwards by the first man, who makes no attempt to pay for his coffee. Such are the tropes of your standard-issue thriller, in which anything as trivial as a mug of coffee is immaterial, not to be noticed. But, wait, there’s another man in the diner, wearing a hard hat and a high-viz jacket, who slips to his feet, follows the first man onto the street and then in a taxi to Grand Central Station (by which time he’s wearing a white hoodie and baseball cap) and onto the platform of a train departing for Poughkeepsie. His mission would seem to be accomplished.
The third man, a shadow in the night, is played by Riz Ahmed, who works out of a fortified warehouse in Newark. He is an enigma, a cypher of many guises, whose work ethic is meticulous and whose appearances are many. To hide his voice, he types messages out on a teleprinter, which are relayed to the Tri-State Relay Service, for whom he freelances. The agency’s job is to protect the anonymity of whistleblowers, with a rath of elaborate instructions – and for a goodly fee. Sarah Grant (Lily James) is a whistleblower who has threatened to go public with the unethical and environmentally deadly practices of Cybo Sementis Research Institutes, but who is now so frightened that she wishes to retract her accusations. However, a counterintelligence team hired by Cybo Sementis is already tracing her every move. Before they delete her, though, they need to know that the incriminating evidence in her possession has been destroyed…
Sarah and the man of many faces are separated by a network of communication channels, designed to shield their respective identities. And yet as the veils of secrecy are infiltrated by inadvertent human input, an almost subliminal rapport emerges between the two. We learn that the man played by Riz Ahmed is an alcoholic who leads a solitary life, owns a formidable collection of vinyl LPs and can sign with the deaf (cf. Sound of Metal). Sarah is an equally solitary soul, has enough money at her disposal to pay Tri-State’s hefty fee ($50k) and is curious enough to walk into a store specialising in vinyl…
As the splashes of human connection seep across the palette of the seemingly generic, one remembers the man behind the camera: David Mackenzie. It was Mackenzie who directed Hallam Foe (2007), Starred Up (2013) and Hell or High Water (2016) and he’s not the type to knock out a standard action-thriller. And as this narrative of one-upmanship in the digital age tightens its grip, a sudden smile brightening Riz Ahmed’s face has an almost cathartic effect (likewise, a reference to a song title of The Who’s 1965 album My Generation). Somewhere in the cracks of the neon streets of Manhattan and Newark there is a human beat…
Had Mackenzie’s predominantly ingenious film ended there, we could be content with a modern-day warning of corporate amorality, biotech duplicity and the legerdemain of current surveillance techniques. But an added twist pushes the cart over, breaching our trust in the plausibility of an already far-fetched scenario. And we were just ‘this close’ to something not only hugely suspenseful, but satisfyingly offbeat and, under the circumstances, even original.
Cast: Riz Ahmed, Lily James, Sam Worthington, Willa Fitzgerald, Eisa Davis, Matthew Maher, Victor Garber, Jared Abrahamson, Pun Bandhu.
Dir David Mackenzie, Pro Gillian Berrie, Basil Iwanyk, David Mackenzie and Teddy Schwarzman, Screenplay Justin Piasecki, Ph Giles Nuttgens, Pro Des Jane Musky, Ed Matt Mayer, Music Tony Doogan, Costumes Alana Morshead.
Black Bear Pictures/Thunder Road Films/Sigma Films-Black Bear Pictures.
111 mins. USA. 2024. US Rel: 22 August 2025. UK Rel: 31 October 2025. Cert. 15.
