Netflix has added Relay to its film library, and it’s a very modern thriller that you shouldn’t sleep on.
Avatar: Fire and Ash star Sam Worthington has a prominent role in the film, but this movie belongs to Riz Ahmed and Lily James for their dynamic performances.
Relay is Watch With Us‘ pick for the one movie you should stream this weekend because it’s the first one in a long time that truly surprised us.
For a film that was seemingly made on a low budget, Relay still manages to get the most bang for its buck.
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Riz Ahmed Gets His Action Hero Moment
It’s not as if Riz Ahmed was a stranger to action films before Relay. He had a key role in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story almost a decade ago, before he became an Emmy winner for the excellent HBO miniseries, The Night of, and an Oscar winner for the live-action short, The Long Goodbye. But more than anything else, Relay proves that Ahmed has the makings of a great action star. And it’s not because his character can fight — it’s because of everything he does to remain undetected. He’s the thinking man’s protagonist for most of this film, and one of the rare movie heroes who is consistently more clever than his enemies.
When Ash (Ahmed) speaks to Sarah Grant (James), it’s primarily through a relay system. When he’s by himself, however, Ash reveals some of his hidden layers and goes to AA meetings to convey how and why he became an alcoholic while growing up in New York. There’s an endearing vulnerability to his performance in those scenes, while he’s all business when Ash has to step up and take an active role. If he chooses to go the full Liam Neeson, Ahmed doesn’t have to wait a few decades to do so. He’s ready now.
The Relay Service Adds a Unique Touch to the Movie
The most riveting parts of Relay are when Ash uses the telecommunications relay service that’s intended for deaf or hard-of-hearing people. Ash can hear perfectly well, but he’s realized that the service is an ideal way to hide his identity. It’s such an ingenious twist that it’s shocking it hasn’t really been used in a mainstream spy thriller film before.
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As explained in the movie, the telecom operators read the written text from the supposedly deaf Ash and then vocalize everything he says to Sarah without saving any of their conversations. Every time Sarah is on the phone with Ash, a different person is speaking for him. Male and female voices come and go, although it does seem to stretch a little bit of credibility that the operators aren’t picking up on the dangerous overtones that Ash and Sarah discuss when she tells him how her life is being threatened. Beyond that, this film deserves credit for finding such a refreshing take on the material.
It’s An Exciting and Plausible Thriller
One of the other ways this film stands out is that Sarah isn’t a conventional whistleblower. She does have incriminating evidence that her former employer has committed criminal negligence and other malfeasance. But she’s so worn out by the company’s intimidation tactics that she just wants to give it all back and reclaim what little of her life she still has. Ash makes it clear very early on that he’s not a bodyguard, he’s just an intermediary who is willing to broker a shadow deal with her employer.
Worthington gets to play the villain in this film as Dawson, the enforcer of the corporation who doesn’t even try to follow the rules that Ash sets out for him. Like Sarah, Dawson’s interactions with Ash are primarily through the relay service, so even he doesn’t know who he’s really dealing with. The lengths that Dawson and his team go through to catch Ash and recover their stolen documents feel very plausible. We can’t say if corporate American companies really have their own kill squads, but it makes perfect sense for the one in this film to field private army operatives when billions of dollars are at stake. This is an ambitious film that punches above its weight class, so make sure you watch it soon.
Relay is streaming on Netflix.
