Relay - Movie Review

The Movie: Relay

The Director: David Mackenzie

The Cast: Riz Ahmed, Lily James, Sam Worthington

The Story: A broker of lucrative payoffs between corrupt corporations and the individuals who threaten them breaks his own rules when a new client seeks his protection to stay alive.

The Rating: 7 / 10

The Review:

I'm always down for a good corporate espionage thriller and when I saw the cast for this movie, I felt like this is one I needed to check out. Riz Ahmed has always been a favorite of mine, especially after the performance he gave in Darius Marder's Sound of Metal all the way back in the year of 2020 which seems like forever ago now, right? Lily James has also done some great work including Disney's live action Cinderella remake and the more recent wrestling biopic, The Iron Claw.

Also, is it just me, or is Sam Worthington maybe the most underrated actor of all time? I guess depending on how you define underrated, I mean, he is the star of the two biggest box office movies of all time, of course being the two Avatar movies with a third one on the way later this year. Maybe he goes a little unnoticed because his characters are always kind of the same, even if their in a completely different setting, or even planet. Still, I always enjoy seeing him on screen and this movie was no exception.

The story itself is pretty interesting with lots of tension and drama and a little bit of action thrown in. If you saw my "First Reaction" video, you're probably waiting to read about the big plot twist I mentioned. Of course, my reviews are always spoiler free so I won't talk about the moment specifically but, what I will say is that the twist nearly derailed the whole movie for me and it only barely recovered as it carried on to the end. Fortunately, at this point is where a lot of the action begins to take place so I was sufficiently drawn into that rather than left sitting to dwell on the strangeness of the twist.

I wish I could explain more but I don't want to ruin anything for you so I'm going to just leave it at that. Beyond that moment, which was like a total what the heck and then things are never the same after that moment, I really enjoyed everything else about the movie. It was also nice to watch a movie that's not part of a big franchise which helped to allow the story to just sort of exist on it's own. The performances really carry the movie and I had a lot of fun watching the actors interact with each other within this world of underhanded tactics and high stakes deals.