Sharp but shallow, Relay gives Riz Ahmed his own Michael Clayton-style thriller

Relay makes a lot of savvy, satisfying dramatic choices. There’s a pleasing sense of precarity to Sarah’s situation—she spends the bulk of the film at arm’s length from not just her protector, but the menacing enforcers led by Dawson (the increasingly dependable Sam Worthington) after her valuable intel. Piasecki’s screenplay finds many blind spots of public service—not just relay services, but also TSA and the post office—that Ash uses to delay the henchmen from crushing his operation, and Mackenzie engineers extended bouts of tension from asset drops and stakeouts as Ash’s control starts to waver. 

In airport lounges, twilight New York streets, and busy tourist spots, Sarah is watched by voyeurs who are also trying to spot each other, but while Ahmed’s tense, still expressions effectively channel Relay’s wired, weary tone (it’s tiring being so paranoid all the time), Relay finds no emotional heft in its ensemble, filling out its characters with weightless shorthand and undermining itself with a late-game twist that betrays any investment in the thriller’s David-vs.-Goliath angle. A dead giveaway of the script’s shallow emotional reach is Ash’s defining backstory: He’s a recovering alcoholic, with a neatly explained backstory that drove him away from the assimilation of white, white-collar New York. An AA meeting monologue as character psychology exposition is Grade A hackwork—a handwavey dramatic choice that signals transformation and atonement without proving either.

Likewise, Mackenzie’s competent camerawork lacks the precision or alienation needed to evoke the melancholy and anxiety of a ’70s paranoid thriller (Klute is a big reference point, as Relay inches towards a wounded, impossible intimacy between Ash and Sarah). Relay is shot like television—loose, unmotivated coverage; muted editing—with a pervading sense of functionality to move to the next plot or character beat rather than creating a mood. As the film veers towards a climax that mirrors the shootout ending of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s recent Cloud but with none of that film’s humorous perversion, Relay loses its edge. The film’s playful use of communication systems and powerless characters betrays its political indifference to political insight; it is a series of dramatic games linked together with the occasional, unconvincing assurance that there are real people inside these grinding thriller gears.

Mackenzie’s robust Hell Or High Water fused its thematic concerns cleanly and ably with its thriller mechanics; Relay attempts the same gambit, but lacks Sheridan’s blunt, eccentric personalities to help cover the seams. The resulting film is full of dead air. Rather than discovering anything novel or liberating about the hostile, modern battleground of America, Relay‘s compelling set-up becomes overly dependent on typical rug-pulls and action beats.

Director: David Mackenzie
Writer: Justin Piasecki
Starring: Riz Ahmed, Lily James, Sam Worthington
Release Date: August 22, 2025