BlackBerry: A Review

BLACKBERRY

Technology, trends, things that seem to be eternally ubiquitous have a strange way of fading away into history. Once, the nation had Blockbuster Video stores seemingly on every corner to where the expression "Make it a Blockbuster night" was as dominant as the company that spawned it. Now, it is a relic of a lost world. The same can be said for the BlackBerry device. None other than former President Barack Obama seemed to never be without his "Crack Berry". Now, a BlackBerry device is fit for a museum, relegated to the same historic section one would find typewriters or rotary telephones. BlackBerry chronicles the rise and fall of both the device and the minds behind it. While it has some good performances, its length and one specific performance push it ever-so-slightly down.

Out in the wilds of Waterloo, Ontario, the nerds of startup company Research in Motion (RIM) are tinkering away with their PocketLink device that will put communication within people's pockets. The pitch meeting is a disaster, with RIM heads Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel) and Doug Fregin (cowriter/director Matt Johnson) making a poor impression on financier Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton). Fortune, however, smiles on the duo when, owing to his belligerent manner, Jim is now able to provide his own financing in exchange for a stake in the company.

Balsillie, for all his bullying, knows a good thing when he sees it, and the PocketLink is a good thing. What is not is RIM's rather laidback manner, which he finds immature. There is a sense of arrested development among the RIM employees, where they will break for video games and Movies. RIM appears more like an afterschool STEM program than a serious company. If there is one thing that Balsillie is, it is serious. Eventually, he gets Lazaridis to bring a prototype to New York, but Mike manages to bungle this effort too by forgetting the prototype back at the hotel. Despite this, Balsillie and Lazaridis manage to bring investors to the newly dubbed BlackBerry.

Balsillie is always pushing Lazaridis to do more despite Mike's objections on technical grounds. Balsillie is also alarmed at an attempted hostile takeover of RIM, forcing him to come up with more BlackBerrys that the system can handle. The chaos eventually has Balsillie bring in the pushy network engineer Charles Purdy (Michal Ironside), a terror to the RIM engineers but who to be fair does whip them into shape.

By this time Balsillie, who is hockey-crazed, becomes fixated on buying the Pittsburgh Penguins NHL team and moving them, secretly, to Hamilton, Ontario once he purchased the team. Lazaridis, no pitchman, is forced to try to drum up support to counter the new threat of Steve Jobs' iPhone. Totally lost, Lazaridis promises a better device he calls "The Storm" even though he knows no such product is even in development. Now, it has to be, forcing RIM to outsource things to China over Fregin's very loud and vocal opposition. Balsillie, for his part, is MIA in the oncoming Storm fiasco, so focused on getting the Penguins that he forgoes a chance to save the company by meeting with Penguin officials over AT&T officials. 

The meetings for Lazaridis and Balsillie are disasters. Worse, when the Storms finally arrive, Lazaridis, technician at heart, hears a strange buzzing and begins attempting to fix each Storm phone. With that, the BlackBerry finally collapses. 

BlackBerry, at heart I think, wants to be something like The Social Network, a tale of the rise and fall of both a company and a long friendship. Granted, Facebook, unlike BlackBerry, has not fallen, but my sense is that BlackBerry wanted to paint a similar story. What BlackBerry has as a major positive are many of its performances.

I have sensed that Jay Baruchel has more to him than just Hiccup from the How to Train Your Dragon films. BlackBerry allows him a chance to show that untapped range with his performance as Mike Lazaridis. He is still something of a nebbish, which Baruchel has played more often than not. However, he also shows Lazaridis to be totally committed to the product, one who loves the technology and wants it to be the best. Lazaridis' fears and struggles with people are well-played by Baruchel. Of particular note is when he has a break with Fregin over Lazaridis' impromptu declaration of the Storm device. Baruchel plays the mix of paranoia, anger and genuine loss that the situation forced him into.

The real standout in BlackBerry is Howerton as Jim Balsillie. Best known for the comedy It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Howerton makes Balsillie into a coldhearted, ruthless but efficient businessman. There is nothing funny about Balsillie, a driven, hard-headed and hard-hearted man who let power go to his head. Balsillie was not afraid to cut down the jolly atmosphere at RIM if it meant getting things done, but he also let his hubris and delight in machinations get the better of him. Seeing him so utterly enraptured by owning an NHL team to the point where he would skip an important meeting to try and finalize the deal already makes for great viewing. Seeing Balsillie deflate when the Penguins organization informs him that they learned about his scheme to relocate the team and as such, deny his offer makes for greater viewing.

BlackBerry is Howerton's picture, and he makes the most of his time. One almost sympathizes with Jim, a man who put himself in the hands of bright morons. However, Howerton shows how Jim could be ruthless, bullying and downright cruel. 

In smaller roles, Ironside's Purdy and Cary Elwes as Carl Yankowski, the man who tried to take over RIM, also do strong work. Ironside in particular makes Purdy into a no-nonsense figure who does not give a damn that making the core RIM staff work late upsets their routine. "It's bad luck to work on Movie Night," one of them tells him when Purdy orders them to start creating Storm. The look of disbelief to anger Ironside has does much to convey Purdy's mix of contempt, irritation and fury at the immaturity that he sees.

My one caveat, the one aspect of BlackBerry that does bother me, is its director/cowriter and costar Matt Johnson. As the goofy Doug Fregin, the yang to Mike Lazaridis' yin, I think Johnson perceived himself to be the real star of BlackBerry. I would not be surprised if Johnson saw himself that way given that he directed, cowrote (with Matthew Miller, adapting the nonfiction book Losing the Signal: The Untold Story of the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry) and was the third costar of BlackBerry. I get what Johnson was going for in making Fregin this total goofball who was still a technical whiz. I just never bought it. Moreover, I found Johnson quite annoying as Fregin. Try as I might, I could never shake the sense that Johnson was trying too hard to make Fregin into this loveable eccentric when he ended up being someone I wanted to see fired.

BlackBerry, which I understand was reedited into a three-part miniseries, is a good film that could have been better. In that sense, it is a bit like a BlackBerry Storm: something that had a lot of potential but was brought down by an infernal and incessant buzzing. 

DECISION: C-