Writer-director Charlie Hamilton and co-director Zachary Ramelan deliver a keen corporate-meets-crime thriller with Sway. What should be a seemingly ordinary day for one rising community leader soon falls apart into a nightmare of blackmail, family secrets, and poor choices.
Sway (Emmanuel Kabongo), a prominent community leader, wakes up on the ground outside his home, disoriented and foaming at the mouth, with only a hazy memory of having drinks at a bar the night before. Inside, he finds Jade (Brittany Raymond) waiting in his bed—a woman he doesn’t remember meeting—acting suspicious about what happened the night before. At the same time, he’s hit with the news that his brother Cy (Tony Ofori), a rising football star projected to go number one in the upcoming NFL draft, has gone missing and is feared dead. With pressure mounting, Sway orders his other brother, Richie (Lovell Adams-Gray), to track down Cy, dead or alive, while he tries to steady himself for a critical business deal that must be finalized by the end of the day.
As the search for Cy intensifies, Sway’s day keeps slipping out of control. He forgets he’s scheduled a magazine interview with Lisa (Mishael Morgan) for a “40 Under 40” profile, and when she arrives, she notices coke on the table and the chaos surrounding the search for Cy. During the interview, Sway gets hit with a series of double crosses that reveal just how deeply Cy had fallen into debt from sports betting. The extortion scheme closing in on him begins to take shape, connecting Jade, Rez (Paul Amos), and others whose loyalties shift with every revelation. As the pressure escalates, from the missing brother, the blackmail, and the looming business deadline, Sway races to uncover what happened to Cy before the truth destroys everything he’s fighting to protect.
“Sway races to uncover what happened to Cy before the truth destroys everything he’s fighting to protect.”
Hamilton and Ramelan put an indie spin on the corporate, gambling, and blackmail thriller. Sway takes place in Sway’s apartment and balances the action between in-person interactions and phone calls. The calls tell the broader story of Cy’s disappearance, the #MeToo extortion plot, and a significant business deal that won’t survive if any of this news gets out. In Sway’s apartment are the twists and double crosses, which may involve someone closer to Cy.
I think I’m right in saying that thrillers tend to be better when you can follow the action versus imagine the action. As indie filmmakers know, thrillers and action-thrillers cost a lot of money. Movies have to be made and stories have to be told, and keeping the action contained is a good alternative.
What Hamilton nails down is the dialogue. The most challenging element of a dialogue-heavy movie is following the action, especially when you have four subplots moving simultaneously. Hamilton never lets the story get away from him; he focuses on the plot and solidifies it to its logical, almost deadly conclusion. Anchoring the film is Kabongo, who understands his character arc and plays all the emotional beats along the way. It also helps to have a few heels (whom I can’t mention), who butt up against Sway’s ability to make everything go away quietly.
Hamilton and Ramelan’s Sway succeeds as an indie thriller thanks to its tight pacing, sharp dialogue, and lead performance by Kabongo. It shows that you do not need studio bloat or a globe-trotting budget to deliver a thriller that keeps twisting the knife until the very end.
For more information, visit the Sway official website.
"…succeeds as an indie thriller thanks to its tight pacing, sharp dialogue, and lead performance..."
