Tags: blog, film, thriller, 2025, essential
Author: KickingK
Date: Saturday October 04th, 2025
Credit or Debit?
Riz Ahmed plays a middle man who works on behalf of whistle blowers and the corporations they've stolen from to ensure that they both get what they want out of a deal.
To do this he uses a relay service for deaf people, typing messages into an old-fashioned computer modem that is then read out by a call centre operative. Nobody hears him speak and the service is untraceable.
So in every tense conversation, every high stakes negotiation, the 'Jason Bourne' character is played by a random call centre person who is literally phoning it in. One staggeringly tense, life or death scene is finished off with a jaunty "Thank you for using the tri-state relay sevice, have a wonderful evening".
This deadpan approach to tension building is carried over to much of the rest of the film. Outside of the occasional (and decent) needle-drop the soundtrack is barely noticeable. The cinematography is restrained and un-showy, not a single trace of camera shake. The acting is similarly pared down, Riz Ahmed has about two lines of dialogue in the entire first third of the film.
This is a film that lets the plot and the characters drive the tension. And boy is this film tense. It starts at a level of 'gripping the arms of the sofa', rapidly escalates to 'fitness tracker heart-rate warning' before gradually climaxing to 'choking claustrophobia'.
Like director David Mackenzie's previous film, Hell or High Water, Relay draws from the real-world effects of late-stage capitalism to bury it's characters in impossible choices. There's no 'good guys', just people trying not to drown. There are antagonists, but the real villains are out of site, everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Untouchable but inescapable. As the 'heist' begins to fall apart in the latter stages of the film, there's a growing realisation that there's no way to not lose this game. Even if you win, it'll cost you your soul. A single answer phone message breaks your heart and you know the game is rigged every single way.
This film stands along side the previously mentioned Hell or High Water and the more recent How to Blow Up a Pipeline at the absolute pinnacle of the modern heist movie genre.
