David Mackenzie’s Relay is a sharp, slow-burn thriller that harks back to the golden age of cinema — the kind of film that trades cheap thrills for creeping tension and moral unease. Written by Justin Piasecki, the film premiered at TIFF last year and stars Riz Ahmed, Lily James and Sam Worthington.
In the film, Ahmed (Nightcrwler, Sound of Metal, The Night of) plays a mysterious “fixer” who helps whistleblowers safely return stolen or dangerous information before it destroys their lives. He operates in the shadows, running a delicate network of handoffs and coded messages. When he takes on Sarah (Lily James), an anxious food industry worker caught up in a corporate cover-up, his calm starts to unravel. What begins as a professional job quickly spirals into a much more persoinal one.
Mackenzie, best known for the modern Western Hell or High Water, clearly has his sights set on something grander here: the sleek, cerebral paranoia of 1970s thrillers like The Conversation or Three Days of the Condor. And for most if the duration of the movie, he nails it. The pacing is patient but purposeful, the tension built through silence and implication rather than spectacle. Ahmed’s performance is magnetic — calm, measured, and deeply human. He has a way of making even the smallest gestures feel loaded with meaning.
The film’s atmosphere is equally compelling. Shot across New York in clean, almost clinical high definition, Relay feels both grounded and detached — a world of polished surfaces and hidden rot. But that visual sharpness, while undeniably striking, also gives the film an oddly sterile tone. The emotion sometimes feels smoothed out and the danger a little too controlled.
Lily James, meanwhile, struggles to find depth in a character that often feels underwritten and cliche-ridden. But the real stumble comes in the final act. After so much careful buildup, Relay seems to lose faith in its own simplicity and restraints. The tension bursts not in revelation, but in all out action — an ending that feels too familiar, too neat for a story that promised ambiguity and maturity from the start.
Still, there’s plenty to admire here. Relay is smart, stylish, and ambitious — a film that reaches for the intelligence and elegance of its influences, even if it doesn’t quite grasp them. It may not redefine the genre, but it reminds you what a grown-up thriller can look like when it aims high.
Relay is in cinemas from Friday October 31st
