David Mackenzie’s Relay, which is attuned to the moral complexities of being a whistleblower in the 21st century, takes its cues from 1970s conspiracy thrillers like The Parallax View, The Conversation, and Three Days of the Condor. Set to the rhythms of a pulsing, ultramodern New York milieu, the film, at its best, wrings real tension and excitement out of the simple exchanging of clandestine messages and sensitive information.
Ash (Riz Ahmed) is a recovering alcoholic and recluse who makes a living as a shadowy intermediary between whistleblowers and corporate entities. Armed with an old Ameriphone assistive device, he uses New York Relay, a statewide service for those with hearing or speech loss, to communicate untraceably and anonymously, ransoming sensitive information while ensuring the safety and financial gain of his vulnerable clients.
When research scientist Sarah Grant (Lily James) contacts Ash about the return of a dossier to Cybo Sementis, a biotech company trying to bury a disturbing food safety report, it’s a leftfield request, but he initially thinks it’s business as usual. But with the company’s looming acquisition on the line and a team of corporate mercenaries (lead by Sam Worthington and Willa Fitzgerald) hell-bent on figuring out Ash’s identity, things get complicated and dangerous fast.
The film, lensed by Giles Nuttgens, presents a ground-level view of New York that brings a particular vibrancy and flavor to this tale of urban espionage. Mackenzie plunges his actors into the real-time chaos of Times Square and the financial district, giving Relay a sense of claustrophobia and spontaneity that fuels the engine of Justin Piasecki’s voluble script. Mackenzie opts for a primal-pedestrian approach, letting the atmosphere of a city do the talking.
The use of the New York Relay service is a novel way to mask the fact that so much of the film is just people communicating via text and phone, but it also adds a distinctive layer of intrigue as Sarah becomes increasingly besotted with her mysterious conspirator/savior on the other end of the line. It speaks to Ahmed and James’s talents that their characters’ connection comes through so clearly, despite the actors sharing very little screen time together.
Unfortunately, Relay tosses in a third-act twist that feels like a cheat, not just because it doesn’t comport with what we’ve seen and experienced of the characters, but because it leaves the film’s core thematic questions unaddressed. Is whistleblowing itself an indisputable moral imperative? If someone makes the decision not to risk their life and safety at the expense of hypothetical others, is that person bad? And can we, as viewers, say that we wouldn’t do the same?
Mackenzie and members of his cast spent time interviewing whistleblowers to help inform the project, and it would have been nice to if the thornier aspects of what they heard had been reflected in the final film. Relay is a tense and diverting urban espionage thriller, but the way it wriggles its way out of a tight thematic knot of its own devising, and in such rote fashion, means that it ultimately can’t hold a candle to its obvious touchstones.
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