Writer-director Tom Botchii serves up a genre smorgasbord with his new film, “Relentless”. It’s fun to even consider the various thrillers it qualifies as. For starters it’s an action thriller, a revenge thriller, a psychological thriller, even a home invasion thriller. It dips its toe into exploitation cinema. It sometimes plays like a bruising character study. At other times you’ll swear you’re back in the grindhouse theaters of the late 1970s.

Whatever you consider it to be, far more important is that Botchii keeps things entertaining. “Relentless” might not live up to its name, and it certainly has its flaws, some of which become noticeable early on (more on them later). But Botchii’s vision and inspiration, helped by two firmly committed lead performances, keeps the audience engaged, even as the story struggles to fill its lean 93 minutes.

“Relentless” is a tightly focused two-hander that begins with introductions to its main characters. Teddy (Jeffrey Decker) is a homeless man living out of his car. We meet him as he’s listening to old voicemails from his ex-wife before going to sleep in his cramped backseat. Elsewhere, Jun (Shuhei Kinoshita) sits in his ultra-modern two-story home, enjoying a nice meal of fine sushi. He pecks away on his laptop before climbing into his warm comfy bed for the night.

Their two paths cross the next evening when Teddy shows up at Jun’s home posing as a salesman. After Jun brushes him off, Teddy forces his way inside with a sawed-off shotgun, stalking Jun like his prey. After a brief brawl, Jun grabs his precious laptop and flees into the night with Teddy in pursuit. Jun manages to get away but loses his laptop in the process. Determined to get it back, he follows Teddy to a gas station only to be knocked unconscious and kidnapped.

Jun wakes up tied to a chair in an old abandoned house with Teddy sitting across from him. From there the two men have a verbal standoff, with Jun swearing he doesn’t know who Teddy is and Teddy insisting he does. Botchii lets the mystery linger, leaving us with a number of consequential questions. Who are these two men? What is their connection? And what’s on this laptop that both seem fixated on? It makes for an intriguing setup with Botchii maneuvering Decker and Kinoshita like chess pieces until he’s ready to reveal more.

The eventual revelations catapult the story into an ultra-violent mano-a-mano showdown that isn’t afraid to let the blood gush. At the same time, the characters are never as fully-formed as they could be. Their individual pasts are merely referenced through exposition which doesn’t allow the story’s themes to resonate as they should. And it’s attempt at social commentary is wobbly at best, with certain motivations playing like wild swings rather than meaningful considerations.

As mentioned, “Relentless” does struggle to find enough story to fill its already lean 93 minutes. Botchii eats up some of the time with stylish visual flourishes that look good but are otherwise weightless and repetitive. Still, this is a solid sophomore effort from an ambitious filmmaker with an interesting vision. Botchii may not hit all of his marks, but he squeezes everything he can out his modest budget and two sturdy lead performances. And to his credit, he’s not afraid to take chances in the process.