In a yr full of product biographies – there are videos of Air Jordan sneakers and Flamin’ Hot Cheetos – “BlackBerry” offers something else: tragedy.
Like Romeo and Juliet, BlackBerry is doomed from the start.
Road to Spoil, nonetheless, is a great time for geeks – “Revenge of the Nerds” with no college sex jokes, but with billions of dollars up for grabs and a groundbreaking invention that still affects much of the planet daily.
Duration: 119 minutes. Rated R (language throughout). In cinemas.
It will be the first smartphone, which 20 years ago peculiarly meant a mobile phone that could also send emails and browse the web.
In 1996, Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel), Douglas Fregin (Matthew Johnson, also a director) and their one-room company Research in Motion from Ontario, Canada, cracked the code to create the BlackBerry against all odds.
Their genius was twofold: they found out not only learn how to construct a mobile device, but additionally learn how to enable 1000’s of the same devices to coexist without crashing existing cellular networks.
And while it lacks the seriousness and moral conundrums of Facebook-centric The Social Network, Johnson’s dweeb film turns each of these technological breakthroughs right into a stirring victory worthy of We Are The Champions.
A fast and funny script by Johnson and Matthew Miller flirts with a condensed, true story, but is usually fresh.
![Loud and proud Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton, right) rocks Research in Motion, co-founded by Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel, left)](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/NYPICHPDPICT000010949121.jpg)
![Jim Balsillie, CEO of Research in Motion, creators of the BlackBerry, presents an early model of the then-revolutionary tool.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/NYPICHPDPICT000010952356.jpg?w=1024)
The corporate’s rise and comparatively rapid decline begins with the arrival of Jim Balsilli (Glenn Howerton), a product director and hockey aficionado, who joins Research in Motion to launch his killer idea and put his funds so as.
Balsillie is loud, brash and vulgar alongside the gentle and grounded Mike, and Baruchel (who has one of the most recognizable and endearing voices in Hollywood) and Howerton play one another perfectly.
Like the lovable actors playing the Geek Squad of inventors who live the blissful campus life they never had, complete with raucous gags and movie nights where you are not allowed to work.
But when the company starts to grow – they work with Cingular, their phone is called one of Oprah’s favorite things, and PalmPilot attempts a hostile takeover – the joy of starting a gaggle and far of the creativity disappears out the window in favor of desperate profits.
![Steve Jobs' first iPhone speech shocks BlackBerry makers.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/NYPICHPDPICT000010949119.jpg?w=1024)
As they watch Steve Jobs give Apple’s keynote, announcing the iPhone – with a touchscreen, music and a full web browser – the expression on their faces in Johnson’s muted video says all of it: we’re screwed.
And it’s at this point, when sad inevitability sinks in, that the initial energy of the film drops.
The revelations of financial mismanagement and legal irregularities are less gripping or frankly interesting than the success stories that got here before them. Mike and Jim are drifting apart, and we miss their hilarious “Odd Couple” sparring.
Nevertheless it kind of mimics the arc of BlackBerry itself: from almost half of the cell phone users owning one over the age of exactly zero today.
For there has never been a story of greater misfortune.