In my opinion, the iPhone has always been a dud because it has inferior wireless connectivity to the BlackBerry, and the iPhone’s lack of a real keyboard is a huge drag I hate typing on glass. That’s somewhat surprising, since I’ve long been an Apple fanboy, having bought my first of many Macs in 1984 and having been the first kid on the block to own an iPod and an iPad. He now finds gold in the tragicomic account of how “the best phone in the world” became just another piece of plastic junk in a desk drawer.Įven after Apple’s iPhone arrived to snatch the smartphone crown from BlackBerry, I remained a loyal member of the BB fold. “Blackberry” is nevertheless a new career peak for Johnson, who has played with the documentary form in his splendid previous films, “The Dirties” and “Operation Avalanche.”
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A lot gets thrown at the screen, including Jim Balsillie’s first of several failed attempts to buy an NHL franchise, and it makes the movie hard to keep up with at times. Toronto filmmaker Johnson co-wrote the script with Matthew Miller, adapted from the book “Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry,” by Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff. The closing-credits soundtrack of the Kinks’ “Waterloo Sunset” makes the best use of that song in a film ever. In the space of less than 15 years, it plunges from owning nearly 50 per cent of the world’s smartphone market to its current share: zero per cent.Īlong the way, BlackBerry had to fend off other challenges, including rapacious early competitor PalmPilot and SEC investigations into how the slippery stock deals used to woo top-dollar engineers were arranged. The biggest change of all happens in 2007 when Apple’s Steve Jobs unveils the iPhone, a device Mike disdains as “an over-designed, trying-to-do-too-much toy” that doesn’t even have a physical keyboard.Īpple is out not to eat Mike’s breakfast bacon but rather his lunch - the iPhone becomes the new communications status symbol and BlackBerry begins its shocking plummet. The biggest transformation happens to Mike, who gets contact lenses, coiffed hair and suits, and begins acting like the corporate shark that Jim has always been (a comparison to George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” comes to mind here). Success makes the RIM guys extremely wealthy but also changes their corporate culture and friendships.
RIM (later renamed BlackBerry Ltd.) and Waterloo become synonymous with Canadian enterprise and achievement. The BlackBerry smartphone becomes the ultimate business tool - even U.S. History records and the film shows with restless camera moves what happens next. Fortunately, Mike is a tech guy and he’s able to convince the Bell suits that RIM and BlackBerry are worth gambling on. “You’re not a tech guy, are you?” a Bell Atlantic exec named Woodman (Saul Rubinek) calmly inquires, after Jim attempts to BS a board meeting with razzle-dazzle of how they’re “selling self-reliance” rather than communications. telecoms for a network deal, despite not really understanding how this outlandish new device works. The RIM nerds race to fashion a (barely) working BlackBerry prototype out of spare parts and toys while Jim starts barnstorming the big U.S. (He settles for less and sharing co-CEO status with Mike.) Oh, and he also wants 50 per cent of the company and the title of CEO. Jim informs a meekly compliant Mike and a sputtering Doug that they need to create, right now, a prototype he can shop around to the telecoms. He’s disdainful of geeks - he doesn’t even love “Star Wars”! - but he has the corporate moxie that RIM badly needs. The Harvard-educated and hair-deficient Jim, impatient and explosive, has the permanent look of a man who has just discovered that his car has been towed.
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Robotics.Įnter Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton of TV’s “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”), the MVP of a crack ensemble cast, who becomes both hero and villain of the piece.
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The problem is that Mike and Doug don’t have a clue how to bring their BlackBerry idea to fruition (they initially think of calling it PocketLink) or how to make and exploit a successful business deal, as they comically demonstrate when they fumble a huge modem sale to U.S.
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