How do you stay concealed in a world that makes it nearly impossible to do so? How can you safely hide your identity at all times when all it takes is a partial photo of your face for the wrong person to learn more about you than you could imagine that they could ever know? These are all-too-real questions tackled by Relay, director David Mackenzie’s (Hell or High Water, Outlaw King) taut thriller. In a day and age in Hollywood where you can be anything, a typical moviegoer’s wish is for a film just to be original. That is what Mackenzie brings with this subtle, yet intense, character-driven whistleblower thriller, while also delivering the best twist of the year, one that will invite us to reexamine the movie’s entire timeline long after our viewing is complete.
Category Archives: David Mackenzie
Hell or High Water (2016)
David Mackenzie’s (Spread, Asylum) 2016 surprise is a movie you’ll like if you go in with minimal expectations. You might be disappointed if you think it will be your typical bank robbery thriller. You might be disappointed if you think it will be full of suspense. If you are interested in a simple character-driven story with a little more than meets the initial eye, you might enjoy Hell or High Water. It’s a bit more quirky than you might think. If you expect a massive bank caper drama, this isn’t it. Mackenzie tries to take a different angle with this movie, adding humor, recklessness, and interesting side characters to a story, primarily a bank heist film. And while this movie has a 98% fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes, this doesn’t mean that most reviewers are scoring it a 9.8/10. Instead, it means that 49 out of 50 give this movie a positive review. While it is an interesting film (and the first one of 2016 I have watched twice), it is no longer a Best Picture candidate. I know there was talk that it might sneak into the race. I do not know how it got nominated for Best Picture, whereas a movie like Sully did not. While Hell or Hgh Water is a decent movie, I think many people (including myself) expected it to be far more significant than it was.