David Mackenzie’s Relay, starring actors Riz Ahmed and Lily James, is a high-concept thriller about a fixer pulled into danger when a client needs protection.

Ash (Riz Ahmed) works as a reclusive high-level fixer who thrives on navigating shady deals between powerful corporations and the people who could expose them. Known for his precision and secrecy, he operates by a strict code that keeps him untouchable. But his carefully controlled world unravels when biotech scientist Sarah Grant (Lily James) reaches out—not for a payout, but for protection, forcing Ash to bend his own rules just to keep her alive.

Ash operates the way he does because he was once a whistleblower himself—albeit an unsuccessful one. Now, working through a relay service, he uses his skills to protect others in the same position. He’s also deeply paranoid, disguising himself whenever he steps outside, relying on burner phones, and constantly watching his back. When we first meet him, he’s wrapping up a job with pharmaceutical executive Hoffman (Matthew Maher) and carefully ensuring he gets out on a train undetected. Only afterward does Sarah enter the picture. She’s being hunted by corporate enforcers for information she stole. You’d think simply returning the data would solve the problem, but of course, nothing is ever that simple.

Ash abides by a strict code with his clients, and he won’t work with Sarah until she agrees to his rules. On one hand, it makes sense—he can’t risk anything leading back to him in an age where everything is traceable. Still, his paranoia is striking; I lost track of how many phones he burned through. Sarah, meanwhile, longs for a return to normalcy, but for now, she’s left vulnerable in a cat-and-mouse game with her employer’s hired muscle.

Because of my schedule and Emmy season, I missed Relay during the 2025 Tribeca Festival and only caught it later via a press screener. This is exactly the kind of film I wish I’d seen in a theater—not that I would have had the chance while covering Tribeca virtually. Thrillers thrive on that shared tension, the collective gasp of an audience. Watching alone on TV, I couldn’t help but think how much sharper the experience would have been on the big screen. Honestly, I wish Bleecker Street would resume theatrical press screenings in my market—movies like this deserve them.

Relay is a paranoid political thriller that could have otherwise been in conversation with classics like All the President’s Men, Three Days of the Condor, and The Parallax View. It explores themes of loneliness and bravery, particularly the isolation faced by whistleblowers who dare to challenge corporations determined to silence them. The conceit of the relay service—where conversations pass through a third party—was new to me, and the film makes clever use of it to underscore the fragility of trust. But where it loses me and likely others is when the third act takes us on a WTF turn that was never hinted at earlier.

Because of its subject matter, Relay will likely always feel timely. Much of the film, anyway. Whether it earns a place alongside the canon of great paranoid thrillers is harder to say, but most of it stands firmly within that tradition. Stories about whistleblowers rarely age out of relevance, and while The Insider remains a benchmark from the past few decades, Mackenzie’s film finds its own sharp, unsettling voice. Here, as ever, truth comes at a price—and those who speak it often pay with their solitude.

DIRECTOR: David Mackenzie
SCREENWRITER: Justin Piasecki
CAST: Riz Ahmed, Lily James, Sam Worthington, Willa Fitzgerald, Eisa Davis, Matthew Maher, and Victor Garber, Jared Abrahamson, Pun Bandhu, Seth Barrish

Bleecker Street will release Relay in theaters on August 22, 2025. Grade: 3.5/5

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