I try not to read anyone else’s reviews before I put my own thoughts on paper, but David Mackenzie’s erudite thriller “Relay” played festivals a year ago and there seems to be a bit of a consensus. The film, according to many of my peers, is very good until the ending, where it all falls apart.
Yeah, I declare shenanigans on that. I couldn’t disagree with it more. “Relay” is indeed an impressive thriller, evoking the eerily plausible paranoia of ‘70s classics like “Marathon Man” and “Three Days of the Condor.” It’s also got an obsessive, even ruthless eye for detail. Any movie that reminds you, simultaneously and favorably, of Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Conversation” and Michael Mann’s “Thief” is doing something very right — even if it looms a lot lower than those towering works of genius.
And yes, I not only like the ending, but I think it saves “Relay” from its own near-sightedness. We’ll get to that (vaguely) in a few paragraphs.
“Relay” stars Lily James as Sarah Grant, a corporate whistleblower with evidence that an agricultural company is endangering the world’s safety with it doesn’t really matter. All we have to know is that it’s bad, catastrophically bad, and Sarah wanted to tell the world until Evil Corporation A put the screws to her, ruining her career and stalking her wherever she went. Sarah just wanted to do the right thing, but she’s so scared of Evil Corporation A that now she wants to give back the files and get her life back.
Enter Ash, played by Riz Ahmed, who helps whistleblowers when they change their minds about whistles. It sounds like Ash is working for the bad guys, and in a way he kind of is, but more than anything he wants to protect people from sinister organizations that wield all the power and will probably get away with all their crimes even after they come to light. Ash has an elaborate system, and it’s all based on the Telecommunications Relay Service, which helps people with disabilities communicate over the telephone via a typing machine and a helpful anonymous operator. Ash can communicate safely because the Relay Service doesn’t keep records of their calls. What happens on the Relay stays on the Relay.
Ash starts the process of rescuing Sarah from Evil Corporation A, which employs Evil Goon A (Sam Worthington) and Evil Goon B (Willa Fitzgerald) to do their dirty work (those aren’t their real names. I couldn’t remember their real names if you put a taser to my neck). When Evil Goons A and B realize a third party has entered the chat, they try to unravel his web of secrecy and track him down. But Ash is too smart to get caught. He is, however, not quite smart enough to avoid falling for Sarah, who makes a big impression, even via Relay.
“Relay” is a movie where everyone is so extraordinarily intelligent that when they make mistakes, even understandable mistakes, it’s physically painful. Ash has thought out all the variables. Evil Goons A and B are, at most, two steps behind him and they’re gaining ground every day. It’s a game of cat and mouse where both the furry animals have PhD’s in criminology and espionage. It’s like watching two chess masters go at it in a park, but each has a gun cocked under the table.
David Mackenzie made a name for himself with the Best Picture-nominated “Hell or High Water,” a film that was efficiently told and exceptionally acted, but nowhere near as deep as it loudly proclaimed. The shallow and generic machismo of “Hell of High Water” has been replaced here with moral complexity and tragic sensitivity, making “Relay” a lot less self-congratulatory and a lot more satisfying. It’s a properly modern pulse-pounder, the kind that could only have been made in recent years, despite humming with the paranoiac, high blood pressure that’s run through the most cynical American cinema for as long as anyone can remember.
The premise of “Relay” falls apart under a microscope. Ash’s schemes are brilliantly conceived, but it’s a good thing we meet him after he’s been doing this for a while, because it’s impossible to imagine how he got this illicit startup started. How does one find an anonymous whistleblower in the first place, let alone convince them to go along with this absurdly elaborate scheme for the very first time, communicating over the phone with an anonymous stranger who claims — with, so far, a zero-percent success rate — that he can outmaneuver an all-powerful, evil corporate empire? How did Ash convince a high-profile law firm to send him clients? What, was the first whistleblower free?
What does make sense, although it seems to be a sticking point for many, is the film’s conclusion. “Relay” is about a man saving whistleblowers from their own employers, but in the process, he’s also helping those corporations get away with murder and, often, a lot worse. His sympathy for the plight of people who try to do the right thing but can’t bear the unthinkable consequences is, itself, sympathetic. But this is an antihero in the most profound sense of the word. His actions are, to most people, the opposite of heroic. He saves one life at the expense of many.
“Relay” does, in the end, reckon with its own hypocrisy, and while from a plot perspective the conclusion is a little pat, the point it makes is vital. David Mackenzie’s film yanks itself away from a moral and ethical precipice — and at the last possible second. If the film ended differently, we’d be complaining about its fundamental essence, not a teensy bit of plotting. In the world of storytelling you inevitably have to choose your battles. People decide which flaws they can live with and which ones they can’t. I can live with the conclusion of “Relay” as it stands. The options are either equally forced or disappointingly amoral.
“Relay” is now playing in theaters.
