Lily James' Must-Watch 2025 Crime Thriller With Riz Ahmed Is Streaming On Netflix

The central conceit of David Mackenzie's 2025 thriller "Relay" is novel, and exploits a widely used technology that many casual filmgoers may not know about. Riz Ahmed plays Ash, who has a very peculiar job. It seems when corporate whistleblowers decide to change their minds about blowing the whistle on their corrupt bosses, they need a safe way to return stolen information. Ash acts as an intermediary between the would-be whistleblowers and their corporate masters, ensuring the safety of the former, and protection to the latter. Ash is completely anonymous to both sides of the transaction, and communicates coldly and matter-of-factly. 

Ash's chosen means of communication is a specialty relay service intended for the hard-of-hearing. He types messages into a Telecommunications Device for the Deaf (or TDD), which are then sent to an anonymous operator in a relay office. The operator will then call his subjects and read his messages aloud. Because TDDs are a sufficiently old technology, there is no way for a wicked corporate overlord to hack them or spy on them. And because the relay services guarantee 100% discretion, they discard all records of their messages as soon as someone hangs up. "Relay" doesn't just employ TDDs and relay services to make an effective thriller, but serves as a reminder that such services do exist for the deaf and hard-of-hearing. 

The central story of "Relay" will involve Ash's involvement with Sarah (Lily James), a reneging whistleblower who Ash will, despite his better judgment, find himself falling in love with from afar. Meanwhile, a cadre of corporate goons is working overtime to reveal Ash's secret identity. "Relay" is terse, fascinating, and pretty great. It's one of the better thrillers of the year. And now it's currently available to watch on Netflix.

"Relay" is likely going to be comforting to older audiences who remember life before the internet. A lot of the technology in "Relay" is refreshingly retro, right down to the vinyl records that Ash and Sarah end up discussing over their relayed telephone calls. Ash's business mandates require that no personal information is shared, but he slips when he sees (via spy cameras and telephoto lenses) just how scared she is. Ash reluctantly shares his taste in music, which puts Sarah at ease. Despite his distance, and the fact that, to her, he only has the voice of several anonymous relay service operators, Sarah finds that Ash is the one island of humanity in a gross corporate world of slimy secrets and carefully protected malfeasance. 

And through all of this, we're dealing with dial-up phones and dial tones. Packages need to be sent to distant post offices and picked up in person. "Relay" points out that, in a world of increasingly pervasive surveillance, people can indeed still be anonymous. They just need to revert to older technologies that once buoyed the world. Like in this year's remake of "The Running Man," older tech will be required to remain un-hackable. To remind readers, "The Running Man" noted that decades-old CRT TVs were popular on the black market because there weren't any cameras or listening devices implanted in them. Those interested in retaining privacy, all used the technology of Generation-X and before. 

The filmmakers of "Relay" keep the usual action scenes and chase sequences one might expect from a thriller — there's a standout sequence involving a newsstand — but it remains heady and grounded in the tactile. 

"Relay" also points out something that we all kind of intrinsically know: that corporate overlords are just as scary as any anonymous assassin. It's very telling that "Relay" isn't about whistleblowers trying to get information to the press, but the common phenomenon of potential whistleblowers getting too scared and changing their minds. It seems that the evil corporate masters (represented by Victor Garber in one scene) aren't so much afraid that their information will be leaked, so much as they are proving that they still have control over every peon in their employ. On the ground, the corporate goons are led by a tough-skinned Sam Worthington, and a perpetually annoyed Willa Fitzgerald. On paper, they're little more than rent-a-cops, but they are willing to do actual harm to people in order to earn their paycheck. Why do corporations even need people like that?

But there's also humanity within "Relay." Ash, for however cold and distant he tries to remain, does begin to realize that what he's doing is essentially allowing bad guys to get away with doing bad things. We also see Ash attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, implying that he used to have a liquor-based coping mechanism that got well out of hand. 

"Relay" wasn't a huge hit, making only $4 million at the box office when it was released back in mid-August. Critics dug it, only objecting to some of the plot twists near the film's end. Prior to that, it may remind some viewers of 1974's "The Conversation." It's not as good as Coppola's film, but it's still excellent. It's waiting on Netflix, awaiting discovery.