Relay

Despite living a very carefully ordered and controlled life, a bribe broker, who facilitates deals between corrupt companies and their potential whistleblowers, breaks his own rules when a client needs his protection.

In New York City, Ash is a freelance fixer. 

He works a very niche angle, mediating safe and mutually agreeable resolutions between potential whistleblowers having second thoughts, and the companies they were thinking of exposing.

His current client is a man named Hoffman. A former employee of a large, multi-national pharmaceutical company called Optimo, he is in possession of documents that will incriminate the company in wrongdoing. But having been intimidated by the thugs sent by Optimo, Hoffman has now changed his mind about going public. After the anonymous Ash receives a copy of the documents, in order to guarantee Hoffman’s safety, he then brokers a payoff from Optimo, and Hoffman gives back the originals to the company. After the handoff, Ash secretly follows Hoffman until he safely boards a train bound for a safe house outside of the city. All Hoffman has to do after that is lay low for the next few weeks, and leave a daily message for Ash at an answering service, letting Ash know that Optimo has not moved against him. Through all of this, Ash holds on to the copy of the documents in his secret storage facility, ready to send copies to the press if need be, and then the pair just waits for Optimo’s corporate structure to accept its loss, and shift its attention elsewhere.

If everyone follows the rules, everyone gets to walk away happy.

Meanwhile, potential whistleblower Sarah Grant is referred to Ash for help following the actions of her former employer, Cybo Sementis Research Institutes. With only a few days until Cybo Sementis’ stock goes public, the company is trying to cover up a report detailing deadly health issues that resulted from using their new strain of genetically modified wheat.

Sarah has a copy of that report, intending to go public herself.

But after Cybo’s harassment has escalated to setting her car on fire, and driving her from her old apartment to a new one, forcing her to stay inside, isolated, and alone, the fire of Sarah’s idealism and strength of her conscience has begun to wane. She is ready to talk deals.

Ash maintains his anonymity with his clients, both the whistleblower and the company, by using a special telecommunications device and one of the random operators at a phone relay service for the deaf, as all calls are legally protected and are not recorded in any way. Ash needs this, because brokering deals like this is a very dangerous job, one that depends on him being the only one with an actual advantage, the only one with a true nuclear deterrent.

As long as the agreed-upon deal is completed, and everyone gets what they want—be it the return of their secrets or a big pile of cash—and everyone then leaves each other alone after that…? Then everyone is safe and will remain so. Ash’s unknown third party presence ensures this. If the company ever violates the agreement, then Ash will expose them. If the whistleblower does, then Ash walks away, and will not protect them from the company. His anonymity is key to ensuring everyone plays nice. If neither party knows who he is, then he could be anyone, or anyones, which means that you can’t find him, and you won’t see him coming, so it’s really best to not rock the boat. Just cut your loses and walk away.

This is exactly what Sarah wants. She is desperate to return the report to Cybo Sementis, desperate to get back her normal life, desperate to escape the company's constant campaign of surveillance and intimidation. The tip of this campaign’s spear is a team of counterintelligence agents from a private military contractor, who were hired by Cybo Sementis.

The team is led by Dawson, an aging Peter Pan and former marine now living fast and loose with corporate financing. He’s a typical restless and bored post-military middle-aged guy. He’s got some skills that he can make a living off of, but only the running n’ gunning in the field kind, and he’s smart enough to be a little bitter and disillusioned by this reality.

He takes Ash’s arrival into this game as an exciting challenge.

And thus, the game begins.

A series of cat and mouse feints and double-feints ensue. Ash walks an increasing thin tightrope as he tries to stay a step ahead of Dawson and his team of corporate cowboys, a group who only grow more dangerous as billions and billions of dollars come under threat. With Sarah growing increasingly desperate, constantly on the verge of panicking, and increasingly unable to follow Ash’s explicit instruction—instructions that keep them both alive—this job only gets worse.

Eventually, Ash is left with a choice: Does he walk away and save himself, or does he break his own rules… and save Sarah.

So, it’s fair to say that this is a pretty common plot we’ve seen before…

A modern day ronin lives a very cloistered life by adhering to a very strict set of rules. These are rules that he never ever breaks, not for any reason, because if he were to break those rules, it could get him killed. But then, he happens to meet a nice community/precocious child/hot chick, and almost immediately, he breaks the rules. What makes Relay stand out is that it’s a fun variation of the familiar story, and even manages to be a little clever too. It’s confident and moves quickly and has a great eye for the details of its world. It’s clear the filmmakers have put a lot of thought into how things should be done here, and they do an even better job of explaining these details in a way that feels like it’s organic to the story, instead of just an info-dump showing off their cleverness.

And sure, it‘s also fair to say that Relay is a little “talky” but c’mon, that’s just the kind of film it is. It’s an adult thriller, made in the shape of the great films of the conspiracy genre like The Manchurian Candidate, Three Days of the Condor, The Conversation, All The President’s Men, etc. It’s definitely not in the same league as those films, of course (honestly, it’s not even as good as Black Bag either), but it’s a worthy member of the club.

Also, I love that in this movie, Ash is just a regular dude in NYC, and his whole “fixer-for-hire” thing is a side hustle. He does this thing as the jobs come his way, which I imagine isn’t very often, and otherwise he’s a part of the daily gig economy grind. And yet, at the same time, he’s also like the classic Roger Moore/Val Kilmer character of The Saint, which was based off a series of novels by Leslie Charteris. It almost seems like the only reasons he‘s doing this side-hustle at all is just for the cosplay, because whenever he gets the chance, he’s putting on a ridiculous disguise and fixing other people’s problems. “Today, I am just your average friendly bike messenger, look how I smile so openly and stupidly and… safely. Nothing to think twice about here... Tomorrow? I’m a lost pizza delivery guy. Why, where does this pizza that I’m carrying go? In this building? The same one you are entering...? The day after… I’m a mustachioed city worker, enjoying the various contents of my old timey metal lunchpail. Have no fear, evil-doers, you can go ahead and have your illicit meetings, for my thermos is not a secret camera! And then! Sitting next to you on the plane… I am an Iman lost in his holy thoughts, certainly not quietly observing you! Ha HA! I… BLEND IN!”

Anyway…

It’s also fair to say there’s a bit of plot convenience here and there. And looking back on it, you might give it all a bit of an askew glance. There’s also a twist that hinges on a pretty obvious break in overall character consistency, but also if I’m being honest, it’s not really that big of a thing. It sticks up a bit, I’m not saying it doesn’t, but as a testament to the film’s otherwise fun and mostly clever writing, I think it can be forgiven. If anything, the only problem I actually had with the film is much the same as my main issue with the story in Superman. Do I believe that an expose in the press would make even the slightest positive difference, especially when the intended result is to punish the wealthy, the white, the powerful, and the privileged? Do I believe that good will just overcome? That in the end, society will collectively decide to just do the right thing, and for no other reason then they were confronted with the simple black and white printed truth?

No. No, I do not. It’s a nice fantasy though.

The movie actually acknowledges this too, and it does so by having Dawson, the face of the bad guys, just outright say it. And yet despite this, the story still veers directly towards that very fantasy. It’s almost like the filmmakers are signaling their surrender. “The only option when it comes to portraying a more realistic ending is an absolute bummer, so… why not do the fantasy option?”

So, whatever... enjoy the fantasy. It’s a good one.