Prime Time: Relay (2025)

A slightly different look at the world of whistleblowing, and a slightly different way to create an enjoyably tense and entertaining action thriller, Relay is the first produced screenplay from writer Justin Piasecki, and it bodes well for what he may give us in the future.

Riz Ahmed plays Ash, a young man who helps whistleblowers, but not necessarily in the way that you might expect. He helps them when they want to put a stop to any intimidation tactics and threats to their lives, helping to negotiate a big payday that will leave his main client safe and a bit better off while the big business goes back to whatever status quo it previously enjoyed. The latest client sent to Ash is Sarah (Lily James), and there are some people who are increasingly desperate to cut off her "escape" options.

Directed by David Mackenzie, someone who has built up an interestingly eclectic filmography throughout the first quarter of this century, Relay is fascinating and intelligent stuff. The title refers to the phone messaging service used by Ash to communicate with his clients, trying to ensure that the two never make direct contact, and that their conversations are private and safe from even the most determined snoopers. A lot of the film, certainly in the first half, plays out through those phone conversations, with Ash also hiding his voice by using a telecommunications device normally thosed by people with hearing or speech issues.

Ahmed is great in the main role, believably smart and determined, seeming to come alive when in the thick of more "gameplay" with the dangerous people wanting him to fail. James is very good, and her attempts to develop a rapport with an anonymous caller feel believable, coming from someone who has had to become very solitary in a very short space of time. Sam Worthington is the main villain of the piece, just following orders from his corporate overlords (of course), and he does well, flanked by Willa Fitzgerald and Jared Abrahamson.

You get one or two very good chase sequences, you get a real sense of increasing danger as the net starts to close around our two leads, and you get enough small set-pieces and enjoyable moments to make the 112-minute runtime fly by. There's also an interesting attempt to consider the price being paid for the peace of mind that Ash gives to his clients. Is their personal safety worth more than the safety of so many others who may have been protected by the information that should have been put out into the world? Relay doesn't give a clean and easy answer, but I'm glad it even took the time to raise the question? 

Those after an action thriller would do well to give this a go, as long as you know that it's not aiming to provide you with gunfights and loud explosions. It's still propulsive, it's still got some physical confrontations, but this is a world removed from a Tom Cruise star vehicle or a Jack Reacher yarn. Personally, I thought that just added to the appeal. 

8/10

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Netflix And Chill: The Iron Claw (2023)

Two things have happened as wrestling has grown in popularity over the decades. One, more and more people have been available to point out how obviously fake it all is, especially when it comes to ongoing storylines and twists and turns on the road to crowning champions for different events. Two, more and more people have been available to point out that it takes a hell of a lot of physical skill and strength to sell that fakery. Real injuries happen all of the time, some of them a lot worse than others, and career wrestlers know just how much blood, sweat, and tears they have left in the ring after years of fighting to entertain hungry crowds. Sometimes it's just enough. Sometimes it's far too much.

The Iron Claw is a tale of wrestling, in a way. It's a look at the Von Erichs, a family who seemed to be cursed, and shows how the male members of that family were worn down over the years by the physical toll of their lifestyles, the pressures put upon them, and sometimes just one bad decision leading to the worst possible outcome. There's pain throughout almost every scene, and the moments that are pain-free feel threatened by some as-yet-unseen train hurtling down the tracks to crash and upend multiple lives.

The third feature from writer-director Sean Durkin, The Iron Claw may seem like it's only for a niche audience, but it actually works well for anyone who has felt that pressure to do something that they didn't always love. That pressure may come from parents, as it so often does, or it may come from siblings. It could come from a loving partner, it could come from those trying to influence your career decisions to deliver a desired outcome. And sometimes, even with those other voices silenced, it comes from within. While The Iron Claw IS about wrestling, it's equally about that internal voice, and the struggle to deal with it.

Holt McCallany does a very good job as the patriarch, a man who thinks he knows what is best for his sons and maintains constant pressure on them to try and be the best they can be. He's a human steamroller, but remains loved by his children long after the damage he has caused finally starts to become clear. The film rests on the broad and muscular shoulders of Zac Efron though, who is put on display in his very first scene in a way that displays his incredible transformation into some kind of man-mountain. Efron can act, of course, but his commitment to embodying Kevin Von Erich here leads to what is arguably his best ever dramatic performance. Jeremy Allen White, Harris Dickinson, and Stanley Simons are the three other main Von Erich boys shown onscreen, with all of them doing well enough to share the screen with McCallany and/or Efron, and both Maura Tierney and Lily James do their best as the main women orbiting a small planet of dense musculature and toxic masculinity.

Like many a film based on real life events, some truths have been omitted and some of the timeline has been moved around, but that doesn't stop this from being very effective and informative, much like the best documentaries. I think those already familiar with the story will find a lot to appreciate here, even if they pick up on certain errors or scenes that they feel don't quite represent things with 100% accuracy, and those who know much less about the wrestling world, like myself, will be moved by it, and maybe interested in diving a little deeper into the true story.  

Don't put this on when you're not prepared for it, mentally. It's a rough, draining, experience, and runs for just over two hours. But do steel your resolve to tackle it one day. It's a majorly impressive work, thanks to Durkin making a number of smart choices and a cast who go as far as they can to present their characters with authenticity, in both their bodies and their souls.

8/10

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Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018)

I was quite unimpressed when I first saw Mamma Mia! I wasn't exactly the target audience for it, I didn't think the songs were always as well worked into the plot as they could have been, and I found the antics of Meryl Streep and her friends just a little bit cringe-inducing. But it still sits on my shelf, surrounded by many better (and a few worse) movies. Why? Because it was one of the free blu rays that came with my first player, and I rarely throw out a film, especially a freebie.

You can already surmise that I wasn't keen to rush out and see the sequel, but see the sequel I did. I am a married man and that can mean compromising sometimes. My wife was going to join me for the latest Mission: Impossible movie so I could put a brave face on and accompany her to this movie. I did my duty.

The plot this time around sees Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) getting ready to open the hotel that she wants to make a success in honour of her deceased mother, Donna (Meryl Streep). Viewers also get to see the early years of Donna (played by Lily James) and how exactly she got herself in the predicament that eventually led to the events of the first film. There are some new faces, mainly in the scenes showing the younger incarnations of the men and women we already got to know as adults, another mix of ABBA hits, of course, and plenty of sea, sunshine, and sanitised -or-family-viewing sexual shenanigans.

Here's what happened when I watched Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again. I had quite a good time. Not only that, I realised that I had been a BIT harsh in my judgement of the first film. I didn't enjoy it when I sat there, watching it in the comfort of my own home, even if I could singalong to the ABBA tunes. But that situation wasn't the best way to view it. It's a shared experience. It's fun for everyone, and the sequel aims for exactly the same end result.

And it achieves it. The songs may be, for the most part, lesser choices but the laughs are more frequent, and simply better. Which makes this a slight improvement over the original. That wasn't clear from the beginning. The first 15 minutes or so had me rolling my eyes on a number of occasions, thanks to the sentimental moments and the poor musical number that feels shoehorned in to the first scenes featuring Lily James (as well as Alexa Davies and Jessica Keenan Wynn, playing her friends). James is good in her role, but things start to pick up when Julie Walters and Christine Baranski come onscreen, and then it's all a surprisingly consistent crowdpleaser as we move back and forth between the past and the present, with lots more fun coming from Hugh Skinner/Colin Firth, Josh Dylan/Stellan Skarsgard, and Jeremy Irvine/Pierce Brosnan. Andy Garcia is also very good, Omid Djalili steals his all-too-brief scenes, and Cher takes the baton from Djalili and almost walks off with the entire film.

Writer-director Ol Parker, helped by Richard Curtis and Catherine Johnson, shows that he knows exactly what the audience wants, and he builds everything to a completely predictable and enjoyable finale that will have even the most cynical viewers grinning. I'm not completely converted, not quite yet, but I WILL rewatch the first film at some point, and I may even let my wife persuade me to endure/enjoy a double-bill one day in the future.

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again is a film that it is easy to turn your nose up at. It is a safe viewing choice, one or two risque lines of dialogue aside, and it suffers from an overabundance of sweetness in almost every character. It will also have you leaving the cinema with a big smile on your face, despite how hard you might fight against it.

6/10

This is the shiny disc version.
Americans can get it here.

Darkest Hour (2017)

Although both films are about a small, plucky bunch looking for a way to defeat a dark force that can often seem undefeatable, this is not a remake, or connected in any way, to the 2011 film starring Emile Hirsch. That was called The Darkest Hour, you see, and this is just called Darkest Hour. Although I am all for some crossover in the future that sees Churchill and co. fighting against invisible alien invaders.

Yes, in case you weren't already aware, this is a film about Winston Churchill, arguably the most famouse Prime Minister in history, as well known for his cigar-smoking and portly figure (think Hitchcock with a bow tie on) as he is for his quotes and speeches, with one in particular being the event that this whole film revolves around.

Directed by Joe Wright and written by Anthony McCarten, this is a slight step down for the former and a slight step up for the latter (can we all agree now that The Theory Of Everything, the previous film written by McCarten, wasn't THAT good?). About as solid as you can get, in terms of detail, performances, and the oh-so-Britishness of it all, there's no denying that the events shown here are very important, in relation to both Britain and the shape of the modern world, but it can be very hard to make the dusty, archaic environment of Westminster seem lively and cinematic. Let's face it, the general public have often seen snippets of political debates on TV and wondered how many of the MPs present could be diagnosed with early onset rigor mortis.

Thankfully, the cast help to make this more watchable than it otherwise would be. All the praise being heaped on Oldman, always worth your time in movies, is justly deserved. He's absolutely brilliant in the main role, nailing the attitude and determination of a man who, at times, had everyone rooting against him. Kristin Scott Thomas is supportive and good enough as Clementine, AKA Mrs Churchill, but she's given very little to do. The same goes for Lily James, playing a young secretary/worker who is given a second chance after an initial meeting with Churchill that doesn't go well at all. Faring much better from the script are Ben Mendelsohn, giving yet another superb performance as King George VI (that there fella who was the focus of The King's Speech), Stephen Dillane, and Ronald Pickup (playing Neville Chamberlain, the Prime Minister preceding Churchill). Politics was very much a boy's club back then, and this is reflected in the characters involved in the main strands of the story as it all winds towards THAT speech.

It's a shame that other aspects don't work as well as the performances. The script has a lot of great dialogue to work with, as you would expect, but falls down somewhat when trying to emphasise the pressure on Churchill, and the momentum that he needs to build in parliament. And a couple of weightier moments are resolved in a way that somehow feels like a bit of a half-hearted shrug. Despite the runtime just creeping over the two hour mark, it feels as if this is a film that could warrant an extra 15-20 minutes, but then you have to wonder if that would make the whole thing feel like a painful crawl. Wright does a capable job, doing what he can to keep things respectable while also engrossing and entertaining. There's just one or two elements that hold this back from being a great movie, despite that lead performance towering over everything.

Worth your time, as long as you know exactly what type of film you're getting. Just don't go into it expecting a reworking of that Emile Hirsch movie.

7/10

Order the bluray here.
Or, if in America, here.

Baby Driver (2017)

Okay, let's address the supporting elephant in the soundbooth, metaphorically speaking. As a movie-related blog, there will be things mentioned here that involve people who have been guilty of very heinous acts. That includes both stars from the past and stars from the present. I will still watch movies starring these people. I still really want to see House Of Cards (I wonder if Netflix will keep it available). And I still hope to enjoy Baby Driver when I next watch it, despite the presence of Kevin Spacey in a supporting role. Different people have taken very different stances recently, in light of events that seem to have led to a dozen revelations a day, with major accusations being levelled against the likes of Harvey Weinstein, Spacey, Louis C. K., Brett Ratner, Bryan Singer, and more. If you want to try and avoid ALL of these people then you do what you have to do. I am still going to be watching as many movies as ever, and playing catch up (the default position of any cinephile), so I am sure that this won't be the only film to feature someone who turned out to be a real piece of shit offscreen. And I am still going to do my own part to help anyone around me feel and stay as safe and unthreatened as they should be, in both the workplace and just in day to day life. Call people out on their behaviour, speak up if a situation is taking a turn for the worse, remove any level of acceptability for the mindset that has led to this world of poisonous clouds and booby-trapped environments that women have had to navigate for FAR too long. What I won't ever do is, for example, buy an autobiography written by Kevin Spacey entitled: "How To Make A Non-Apology And Distract People With Gayness." That will not be happening. If we're all on the same page . . . then we'll begin.

Written and directed by Edgar Wright, who had certainly been thinking about the idea since he made the above music video for Mint Royale, Baby Driver is an astonishingly well-crafted mix of audio and action. If, like me, you have ever wandered around with an iPod soundtracking your day, or just waited for the right tune to get you motivated and moving, then this is a film for you.

The story is fairly standard stuff, and we've seen it all before. It's the "good" criminal (Ansel Elgort, playing Baby) aiming for that one last job that will free him from the clutches of a very bad criminal (Kevin Spacey). But will the last job go smoothly, and will Baby actually be allowed to go free?

The cast are all great here. Elgort is as naive and quiet as he needs to be, livened up when he has his music on, and selling all of the moves and rhythms of his character. Spacey is fine in his role, but Jon Hamm is the best of the supporting players, despite solid turns from Jamie Foxx, Eiza González, and Jon Benthal. Lily James doesn't make as good an impression as she should, but that is the fault of Wright more than anything to do with her performance.

But how does it fare as a car flick? Well, the driving stunts are damn impressive, with some practical work that showcases precision and style in exactly the way that should be the norm for this kind of thing (*cough* F8 *cough*). Wright shows that he can hande the action unsurprisingly, but that is only half the story. Lest we forget, Baby Driver is also a piece of musical entertainment. It's not traditional, but you could argue the case for this film to sit alongside the likes of The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg, All That Jazz, and even La La Land (the most traditional of those three, funnily enough). If you disagree, watch the film while paying particular attention to the choreography, be it of the characters, the editing, every mis en scene element, and then feel free to tell me if you still think I am talking nonsense.

The whole thing is a marvellous conceit, but it's also makes for a film that won't have too many people just thinking it is okay. I suspect most will love it or absolutely hate it. For me, Wright has crafted yet another winner, even if it doesn't have the rapid-fire gag delivery of his previous works (which is no great loss when it allows him to show that he has more than one string to his bow). It will be very interesting, however, to see if he can use his next film to move even further away from what has been his fairly established bag of tricks.

8/10.

Now let's end with a song/the opening scene.

Buy Baby Driver here (UK) or here (USA).
Catch up with me and some other guys talking movies at Raiders Of The Podcast (here).