David Mackenzie delivers a powerful thriller, “Relay,” which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film stars Riz Ahmed as Tom, who acts as a go-between for corporate whistleblowers and corporations. The top-secret Tom operates in a morally murky area until Sarah Lily James enlists his services. What follows becomes a cat-and-mouse game of high-tech and low-tech that culminates in a tense turn of events, with some corporate scrutiny thrown in the mix as well. Black Bear Intl. is handling international rights, while CAA Media Finance and UTA Independent Film Group are handling U.S. production rights.
The director of “Hell and High Water” and “Under the Banner of Heaven” is currently wrapping up his next film, “Fuze,” which is being shot in London and co-stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson. “It was kind of intense and complicated, and it was kind of an adventurous thing all over London,” he says. “Yeah, it was pretty good, I think. But it was definitely hard work.”
“I've made a lot of art films, and I love those films, but I'm trying to find a way to make films that are still cutting edge, but also more engaging for the audience and maybe commercial.”
“Relay” could have been a hit with Warren Beatty in 1973. Mackenzie smiles a little at this, admitting that this is the kind of thriller he was aiming to make. “I thought Reese would be more interesting to work with than a lot of other actors, and I went with that,” Mackenzie says. “He was great to work with.”
“Ahmed is very intense, and because his dialogue is limited, he does most of his acting with his expressive eyes. “The casting process has always been funny, and I’ve followed his career as a consumer over the years, and I’ve always found him to be a really interesting person.”
The film's title refers to the type of telephone service that Ahmed Ash uses in the film. The service employs operators to relay phone calls and messages verbally and through written communications, and is mostly used by people with speech or hearing disabilities. It is also ideal for covert operations as no records of calls or numbers are kept, and the identities of users are kept secret.
Like many of his other films, Relay centers on an outcast. “I’m very drawn to these kinds of outcast characters,” Mackenzie says. “There’s a certain type of character that just won’t fit in. So the kind of people who become whistleblowers—at great personal cost—are people who have a very strong sense of right… and wrong, really, and not right.”
The setting of “Relay,” which was shot in New York and New Jersey, is also very stressful, adding to the overall tension. “I really wanted to shoot in November,” says Mackenzie, but that didn’t work out, so they shot in the spring and early summer. “We toned it down a little bit, and added a bit of mood.”
The screenplay is by young writer Justin Piasecki. Mackenzie likens his experience to a previous film he made himself. “It was like Hell or High Water, written by an unknown writer named Taylor Sheridan. I felt connected to it.”
