2 min to read

Relay

Movie Review

Featured image

Review: After seeing its first trailer, I was extremely interested in the premise of this movie. I think the idea of there being a guy using a relay service to assist wannabe whistleblowers return sensitive documents to the companies they work(ed) for so they don’t continually get harassed is a very unique and intriguing movie idea. Despite this, with how much this movie was not marketed, I was kind of expecting a dumpster fire of a movie. To my surprise it ended up being much better than I anticipated.

First, the movie does a fantastic job at having the first ⅔ of the movie building up to the inevitable climax of the film. It does a great job at going through the story in a way that gets you invested in the main character and also has a sense of uneasiness. As things happen to be going well, you just know deep down that something isn’t right, but you can’t tell what it is. This really kept me anxious for what was going to happen, and it really kept me invested in the story. All of this stood out significantly to me because not a lot of movies have been able to keep me this intrigued and anxious.

I also enjoyed how they gave the main character, Ash (played by Riz Ahmed), such limited backstory. His ongoing ambiguity kept the character intriguing and even more elusive. I also loved how they paired this elusiveness and juxtaposed it with the fact that the more he opens up the sloppier he gets, which really elevates the ongoing story being told, especially when it comes to Lily James’s character Sarah.

One of the only parts of the movie that I didn’t enjoy all the way was the ending. There’s a twist to the story that takes place 85% into the movie that didn’t work for me. There was no build up towards the twist and it never felt like a satisfying way to shake up the movie.

Overall, I found this to be a great movie, blowing my expectations out of the water. It lived up to the excitement and intrigue the trailers promised, and I would highly recommend watching and supporting this movie in theaters. We need more good low budget movies.

Rating: 4/5