In cinema, it’s an unspoken rule that the climax (referred to as “the final act” for many people who view movies as theater plays, even though it doesn’t serve the medium) can make or break your movie. In the case of producer David Mackenzie (Under the Banner of Heaven) and Justin Piasecki’s Relay, it not only breaks it, but completely tarnishes what was otherwise an efficiently crafted and controlled thriller that, while not reinventing the wheel, got the job done and actively made us care about the central relationship between the two characters it followed.
Perhaps this story was too simple for Mackenzie and screenwriter Piasecki that they felt the need to spice things up. Yet, what comes in that climax is so ridiculous that it completely negates any sort of tension or development that we had with Sarah Grant (Lily James) and a mysterious fixer known by many names – John, Tom, or James – but the real identity he wants to keep private is Ash (Riz Ahmed). Grant has obtained secretive information from the company she used to work for that illustrates a cover-up. The company, which is about to be bought by a massive conglomerate, doesn’t want Grant to go public and hires a group of heavies (played by Sam Worthington, Jared Abrahamson, Pun Bandhu, and Willa Fitzgerald) to scare her off.
Discussion
Grant is in desperate need of help, and, after a meeting with a lawyer, contacts the Tri-State Relay Service, which is used for any individual who is deaf or hard of hearing to place a safe and confidential phone call through interpreting devices. This is where she contacts Ash, who agrees to help her out. However, he doesn’t know how complicated the situation will get. At first, it starts as simple as most of the jobs he undertakes: weeding out who is stalking Grant before contacting them to announce his presence and set the terms of a deal that will ensure her safety, without any information going public.
The way Mackenzie presents this is incredibly alluring and quickly hooks us into its patient but always engrossing mode of storytelling. Ahmed doesn’t utter a single word until about half an hour into the movie. When he does, it acts like a shock to the system. He can represent a wide array of complex emotions in his character, whose layers progressively unpeel as the movie progresses. A history of alcoholism fueled by post-9/11 bigotry as a Muslim-American has made him more isolated and closed off than ever before. He would rather keep a life of routine and espionage than form any emotional connection with anyone, even his AA sponsor (played by Eisa Davis). That is, until James’s character comes into play.
Sarah Grant’s Relationship with Ash
Grant forms some symbiosis with Ash that makes it difficult for him not to get emotionally involved in the mission and stay as far removed from her as possible. The bulk of Relay’s first half is actually a push-pull between Ash’s different emotions, as he contemplates whether or not he should get personally involved in this or keep contact to a minimum, which inadvertently brings him closer to the bottle. When he is ultimately confronted face-to-face with a drink, Ahmed’s physical acting is so good that one wishes the movie ended right then and there, and leaves everything open-ended.
David Mackenzie’s Direction
It’s really a shame that everything falls apart by the end because Mackenzie seems genuinely interested in making an espionage thriller that harkens back to some of the best that the paranoia sub-genre has to offer. Many will obviously discuss Alan J. Pakula’s The Parallax View film adaptation as an apt comparison. Although, I was more drawn to a bravura setpiece occurring near its end that undoubtedly recalls Alfred Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much. It’s hard for me to dislike anything that unabashedly rips off the opera scene from both of the filmmaker’s versions. In the moment, it’s definitely a major highlight of the movie.
Mackenzie also proved himself to be a proficient action artist, with the Oscar-nominated Hell or High Water, and his staging of tight action is no different in Relay. In fact, it’s what kept me mostly glued to my screen even during the climax’s twist, which removes everything the movie built up for cheap shock value. I get that the story is conventional, perhaps too conventional. However, the narrative allows Mackenzie and director of photography Giles Nuttgens to craft a thriller mostly based on its visual style instead of focusing too much on a script that people have already seen before. There’s no need to pull the rug out of the audience’s eyes just because you’re seemingly unsatisfied with what was, before a pretty decent script that got the job done, along with two great performances out of both James and Ahmed.
The Issue with Relay
The twist is bad enough, but the most grating example of deus ex machina that comes after the reveal is even more baffling, so much so that it made me let out the biggest, most unintentional laugh of my life, only for the (relatively empty) cinema to join me as well. Or maybe they were laughing at me. Either way, none of it landed, and it feels like it belongs to a completely different movie than the one Mackenzie and Piasecki patiently established for the past hour and a half or so. It removes our attachment to the characters and, thus, makes this entire movie feel completely weightless.
Final Thoughts on Relay
Consequently, Relay’s ambitions translate into a somewhat frustrating thriller that starts out promising but fizzles out so much that none of the supposed positives can outweigh how truly horrendous its denouement is. It can very much make or break a movie, because the only thing that audiences will remember isn’t how it began, but how it ended. The narrative doesn’t need to be paid off. Still, it should at least give audiences something to think about. If you can’t do that, then you’ve failed.
Rating: 2.5/5
Relay is now playing in theaters!
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