BlackBerry (15)

In 1996, engineering student Mike Lazaridis and best friend Douglas Fregin stand on the precipice of creating the world's first smartphone but a lack of cut-throat boardroom acumen prevents the duo from taking their company to the next level. Unscrupulous businessman Jim Balsillie, recently fired from Sutherland-Schultz, bulldozes his way into a position of power. He guides Research in Motion to a dominant market share but questionable business deals eventually bring the company down.

LondonNet Film Review

BlackBerry (15) Film Review from LondonNet

The fierce rivalry between Android and Apple has dominated the smartphone market for the majority of the 21st century but these two brands were beaten to the technological punch by a Canadian company that rose to dominance then crashed into obsolescence. Writer-director Matt Johnson and co-writer Matthew Miller pay tribute to unlikely trailblazers in a bittersweet comedy drama inspired by Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff’s non-fiction book Losing The Signal: The Untold Story Behind The Extraordinary Rise And Spectacular Fall Of BlackBerry. Prefaced by a disclaimer that this entertaining fiction is inspired by real people and real events, Johnson’s picture unfolds in an age of analogue data modems and fax machines, when technical giants dared to dream of a working day when “men no longer commute, they communicate”…

A sharp script contrasts the goofball culture of Research in Motion, creators of the BlackBerry based in Waterloo, Ontario, with the relentless, profit-driven ambition of co-CEO Jim Balsillie, who barks orders like an escapee from the pages of David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross. Glenn Howerton devours the screen as this unscrupulous shark surrounded by fun-loving nerds, sparking incendiary on-screen rivalry with Jay Baruchel’s mild-mannered technical wizard. A brutal tug of war between polar opposites dominates the two-hour running time of a sleek satire that merrily mines nostalgia and deftly incorporates technical jargon without feeling like a dry history lesson.

In 1996, engineering student Mike Lazaridis (Baruchel) and best friend Douglas Fregin (Johnson) stand on the precipice of creating the world’s first smartphone but a lack of cut-throat boardroom acumen prevents the duo from taking their company to the next level. Unscrupulous businessman Jim Balsillie (Howerton), recently fired from Sutherland-Schultz, bulldozes his way into a position of power by investing 125,000 dollars of his own money and remortgaging his home in exchange for a 33% stake in RIM and the title of co-CEO.

The BlackBerry becomes a dominant force in the communications market and Balsillie ignoring Lazaridis’ warnings about bandwidth limitations to demand higher sales and defend against a hostile takeover bid from Palm CEO Carl Yankowski (Cary Elwes). Dreams sour in 2007 when Steve Jobs launches the iPhone, which Lazaridis dismisses as “an overdesigned trying-to-do-too-much toy that will crash any network gullible enough to take it on”. He fails to hear a death knell for his company.

BlackBerry perfectly encapsulates the scrappy, unorthodox approaches of Lazaridis and Fregin with twitchy handheld camerawork more suited to a fly-on-the-wall documentary. The seriousness of every setback is palpable and Johnson confidently walks a tightrope strung between comedy and tragedy. He’s sure-footed when everyone on screen is at the mercy of gravity and reckless ambition and heading for a wince-inducing fall.

– Jo Planter