There ’s no shortage of movies about the courage of whistleblower , and nor should there be : Proverbial insiders risking their professional future ( and sometimes much more ) to reveal the dark deed of conveyance of their diligence are the genuine hero sandwich of our corporate - controlled world . But what about those whowantto disclose the truth but get stale feet ? What about the corporate sprocket who attempt to stand up and mouth out , only to realise how dispiritedly outgunned and out - lawyered they are , how royally hump they ’ll be if they attempt to do the veracious matter ? peradventure their stories merit singing , too . After all , it ’s a dangerous world for the righteously loose - lipped , as the on-going saga of Boeing has made disturbingly clean .
Relay , which premiered this weekend at the Toronto International Film Festival , make a whole suspense thriller around these unsung almost torpedo — the would - be whistleblowers having second thoughts . The film castsSound of Metal’sRiz Ahmedas Tom , a middleman with a very specialized business : He facilitate sorry company deserter flirting with going to the printing press or authorities safely walk back their plans , facilitating the return of sensible documents in exchange for an end to the intimidation maneuver their powerful employer deploy . ( He also , of course of instruction , demands his own eight - digit fee from the ship’s company . ) Does such a service really exist ? in all probability not , but it ’s easy to imagine a job marketplace for someone like Tom , a fixer take to restore silence without violently silencing anyone .
In ordering to efficaciously mediate such conflicts , Tom has to rest a ghost , unheard and unobserved by both parties . He does so via a relay race web that write out instructions through phone operators , so that neither the company nor the possible informant ever actually have contact with him . It ’s a protocol that works for our degree - head up , incognito hero … at least until he takes on the case of one Sarah Grant ( The Iron Claw‘s Lily James , suppressing her usual girl - next - door radiance ) , a former biotech employee looking to offload the accuse evidence that got her relocate , net , and then harass . What ’d she expose ? Namely , proof that the raw worm - resistant crop her companionship was grow could have frightening aesculapian side effects for consumers .
For a while , Relayworks as a game of cat and mouse where the shiner is just trying to bushel the position quo of an insidious book binding - up . The evil company has sent its own in - house fixers who seem quick to kill the scandal the real , old - fashioned way . ( They ’re led by a cast - against - character Sam Worthington , who ’s having a fairly good year at the movies ; theAvatarstar is as in effect villainous here as he was charmingly virtuous inCostner’sHorizon . ) There ’s a great early scene at the drome — a kind of miniature , low - techMission : Impossibleset opus — where Tom uses PA announcements to outwit and elude the pursuer , and eventually has Sarah chain armour two package ( one contain the cogent evidence of misdeeds ) to unlike far - flung locations , creating a kind of postal two - card three-card monte .
Relayis gripping so long as it ’s just observing Tom on the move . He ’s like Michael Clayton by way of Jason Bourne , using his chiefly analog systems — telephones , the chain armour , cockamamy camouflage — to flummox more technologically advanced adversary and keep his client out of the crosshairs . The picture show is directed by David Mackenzie , the Scottish genre dabbler well cognize for his best moving picture , another characteristic - length series of following and evasion , Hell or High Water . His camera , like his character , is always pursue ; the cinema begin with a tense longsighted take that follows the great character actor Matthew Maher from the street into a buffet car , where he complete the final handoff of an earlier surgery Tom oversees . The gleaming digital filming sometimes destroy the illusion that we ’re catch a paranoid ’ 70s thriller ( or even a ’ 90s update of the same ) . But the action is clear and legible , which is important for a moving-picture show that ’s all about the movement of bodies , papers , and selective information .
The play is hokier . Ahmed creates placid glint of moral sense with a proportional sparsity of dialog — he ’s well - casting as a strictly professional instrument of action concealing a individual beneath his code — so it ’s a pity Justin Piasecki ’s hand feels the penury to “ humanize ” him further by make him a recovering alcoholic nursing sometime wounds . ( The AA subplot ends up serving a duple routine , facilitating a deus ex machina . ) And while it ’s a cute idea to have Tom and Sarah develop a faintly romanticistic connection through the relay arrangement ( they switch messages that grow gradually more personal and playful ) , the relationship is rather literally call up in . The film would benefit from the spiky , more flavorful dialogue Taylor Sheridan brought toHell or High Water .
The less businesslike and procedurally orientedRelaybecomes , the less it connects . It ’s a sensibly smart thriller that dumbs itself down as it goes , replace Hitchcockian chess moves with generic gunplay in the net reach . Worse , the plot takes a belated left go that does n’t make a destiny of sense ; it ’s one of those “ thinker - blowing ” twists that ends up feel like a beguiler on the audience , because it calculate on characters behaving in certain slipway only forourbenefit . There ’s some corking novelty toRelay ’s premise — to its interest in the wavering conviction of whistleblowers , to the strange job it imagines around that subject , and to a mod movie dabbling in conspiracy - theory thrills long out of style . Once the motion-picture show moves on from those elements , it flatlines like a phone left flow off the crotchet .
Relayrecently premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival . It is awaiting U.S. distribution .
