This film is one wild ride about the meteoric rise of the first multi-purpose mobile device that spectacularly crashed and burned. Fast paced and free-wheeling, the story is as exasperating to watch as it is funny. You see how a band of tech-geek who loved video games, pizza and movie nights invented a groundbreaking device in the 1990’s, until a slick narcissistic marketing guy muscled his way in to apply hard core sales tactics.
Writer/Director and actor, Matt Johnson (The Dirties) was drawn to the project because of who and how Blackberry was developed. He plays Doug, one of the guys leading this group of techies who loved to work, play and get high together. Johnson told us in our interview that the camaraderie, on and off the set with cast and crew, is what he loves about filmmaking.
As Doug, Johnson plays one of the geek geniuses working with his best friend, the meek but brilliant Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel). Their company, Research in Motion is going into debt selling modems. But they came up with this revolutionary device that could use bandwidth already available capable of making and receiving cell phone calls as well as emails and texts. And it was all right there in the palm of your hand.
Johnson wrote a script, with Jacquie McNish and Matthew Miller, but it was just a template to bounce off of. There’s a certain amount of improv and you don’t know where it’s going to go next. Johnson directed the scenes, including the ones he was in, but relied on his Cinematographer Jared Rabb to catch the drift and follow the action, many times hand held. He credits Editor Curt Lobb for piecing it all together.
Needing money, they pitch it to Glenn Howerton (Jim Balsillie), a hard-nosed, money grubbing, power hungry jerk who throws numbers around. He’s the guy you love to hate and he takes the smart but relatively silent partner, Doug, and the soft-spoken amenable Mike on a roller coaster ride. Balsillie gives a truly driven performance as the strident villain in this tale. These young techies knew how play with circuit boards, but not boards of directors. They barely knew how to put together a presentation for their prototype, which create some very amusing scenes.
The last act of the film is hardest to watch as it all goes right down the drain. Technology was moving so fast at that time, there’s even a scene with Steve Jobs introducing the iPhone which had already surpassed the Blackberry concept. It’s sad seeing these smart, young kids watch their dreams and riches evaporate at the hands of an unethical corporate shark. Matt Johnson capably assembles a cool, chaotic R&D docudrama looking back at the Blackberry with tech savvy humor, ripe for the picking.
IFC films 1 hour 59 minutes R
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