Preceding the premiere of “Relay” at the Toronto Film Festival, star Riz Ahmed who was too busy to attend the festival himself sent in a short introductory video to greet audiences and excite them for the ride they were about to go on, adding that films like these aren’t made much any more. That might’ve gone without question for the films that Ahmed has brought to the festival before such as daring oddities “Sound of Metal” and “Fingernails,” but in the case of his crackling new thriller with David MacKenzie, it can seem like a case of what’s old is new again when if made even as late as the mid-2000s, “Relay” surely would’ve been seen as a safe bet for a studio where even if it didn’t make its money back in theaters would surely become a hit on basic cable where it might be as inescapable as “The Accountant” was once on TNT.
Something this easy to enjoy shouldn’t be so difficult to make, but between the messed up economics of marketing such a broadly appealing film and the rarely right pairing of a slightly audacious filmmaker with mainstream fare, the results on all fronts tend to be mediocre, making the mere existence of “Relay” indeed a bit of an anomaly and the fact that it delivers the goods even more so. Brought to you by Basil Iwanyk’s Thunder Road, the production company behind “John Wick,” the film could clearly act as a franchise-starter when Ahmed is cast as a similarly enigmatic drifter who goes by Tom, content to live in private until compelled by circumstance to take action, but writer Justin Piasecki reconsiders the formula in a clever way when rather than having guns or marital arts skills at his disposal, Tom has to rely much more on his wits and has deemed mostly all verbal interaction unnecessary, except for the AA meetings he attends for his sobriety.
Still, Tom needs to make money and has found a novel business in arranging settlements between potential whistleblowers and the companies they could expose, acting as an anonymous middleman who can keep his own identity a secret when he runs all conversations through a call center service employed by the deaf to communicate, the exchanges protected by confidentiality per the law of the land. Part of the intrigue for the first half-hour of “Relay” is whether Tom is actually a mute himself when he moves silently about New York, but he has to start speaking up once a job starts going off the tracks, concerning Sarah Grant (Lily James), a scientist whose life has become a living hell courtesy of the biotech firm that hired her after her decision to come forward about a type of insect resistant weed with horrible implications for the earth’s ecosystem. After a group of thugs, led by an unnamed Sam Worthington, have parked their van outside her apartment, she procures Tom’s number from a lawyer who knows there’s no traditional channels to handle such a situation and beyond her own desperation, a more personalized pitch for his services, acknowledging all the hoops she had to jump through to reach him, leads him to call her back using his actual voice.
Tom might look ridiculous in the lengths he goes to keep his cover – sometimes literally so when the situation sometimes calls for him to put on “Fletch”-like get-ups when he ventures outside, but the risks of exposing himself both personally and professionally don’t appear to be overblown as “Relay” wears on, with Ahmed more than credible as both a stealth action star and a tortured genius who has been alone with his thoughts for too long. Both he and MacKenzie are inspired choices for shaking things up, with the “Hell or High Water” director finding his groove again after being weighed down by a bit too much chainmail in the medieval “Outlaw King.” Previously undaunted by filming the romcom “Tonight You’re Mine” amidst the massive Scottish T in the Park concert over five days, MacKenzie seems downright delighted to stage a chase in the middle of Times Square, one of the many bold gambits the film itself takes that pay off handsomely.
Like its main character, “Relay” may be a little too clever for its own good at times, throwing in one late stage twist it probably doesn’t need for good measure, but even then the effort is appreciated when to have a good time is placed above all other goals and while there aren’t a whole lot of unanswered questions at the end, it does raise the best possible one a film like this could have when you wonder, “Why aren’t there at least 10 more of these already?”
“Relay” does not yet have U.S. distribution.