It’s 1996, and Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel) and his business partner and best friend Douglas Fregin (Matt Johnson) are on the edge of creating the world’s first smartphone. Unfortunately for them, they are less business savvy than they are tech, and struggle to keep their company, Research in Motion, afloat. Everything changes when cunning businessman Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton) agrees to join the company, bringing with him the money and experience needed to create and sell a prototype of their invention.
Seemingly overnight the three men revolutionize the way people work, communicate, and connect. Celebrities, politicians, and businessmen are now addicted to their Blackberrys. The company’s value skyrockets, yet within a few short years shady business dealings, personal grievances, and, perhaps most dangerously, the iPhone, threaten the company’s incredible success.
What We Thought:
Overall I liked BlackBerry, but I had heard such great things that it didn’t quite meet my expectations. It’s good, but I was expecting a sleeper gem because so many people I know had praised it. I was expecting The Social Network or AIR, but instead got something on par with Tetris. It’s still worth seeing, but I thought it would crack my top 10 of the year and it won’t.
I think the biggest issue with the film is how drastically different from the actual story it is. The film takes a lot of liberties with the truth, timing and characters. The real person that Glenn Howerton portrays in the film said the character is maybe 5% accurate. Howerton’s character is sort of the bad guy in the film with him coming across older and more business oriented than Jay Baruchel and the rest of the cast. He’s the power driven one that takes this nothing company and buys hired guns to push the company forward. He’s the one that wants to buy an NHL team and live the good life. None of that really seems true. Howerton is good in the role, but the character seemed so over the top I had to look into the real guy after the movie.
Baruchel’s character comes across as much younger and inexperienced. By 1996 he’s in his 30s and has been running the company since his college days in the 1980s in real life. Same for Matt Johnson’s character who ends up one of the richest men in the world at one point in real life. These are the nerd characters who are good at making things, but not selling them and get walked on until Howerton’s character joins the company. Except a lot of that isn’t true either. Despite Howerton’s character being bald, he’s the same age as the “younger” characters in real life.
If you can differentiate the film from the truth BlackBerry is good. There’s drama and you root for this upstart to succeed. We all know iPhone eventually crushes the company (which took years to do unlike what the film shows), but even knowing their downfall it’s a fun watch. Baruchel is really good as is Howerton who I’m normally not too fond of. The story is easy to follow along and they tack on all sorts of drama along the way. It’s not the film I wanted it to be, but it’s still worth checking out.
The Nerds Templar 