A movie like BlackBerry might just be the perfect example of why some businesses fail, especially those in the tech industry – lack of communication. This is ironic because the purpose of a BlackBerry was an attempt to make communications easier as the 21st Century was looming. In the 1990s, Mike Lazardis (Jay Baruchel) and Doug Fregin (Matthew Johnson) were trying to keep their company, Research in Motion, afloat. It’s also ironic the company was located in, of all places, Waterlook, Ontario to be exact.
Lazardis and Fregin may have been great engineers and innovators. But they had zero real business and deal-making experiences. Sometimes you just have to say “No” and not give the other party a chance to make you change your mind. Lazardis didn’t have that ability. And Fregin was too busy trying to hold on to his youth, one might assume he was some college frat boy and anytime a meeting was arranged, the businesspeople in suits would assume it was all a prank. This is why most actors, musicians and other celebrities have business managers and agents to handle the tedious housekeeping chores and business calls so they can just do their own thing without much interference.
And that person would be Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton) who was the bulldog businessmaker they needed to set up big meetings and threaten litigation against the clients who were trying to stiff them on payments. Balsillie with his balding head and nice suits seem to be the opposite of Fregin who wears headbands with his unkempt frizzy hair and muscle shirts. Fregin was able to be the other engineers’ friend by having a weekly Movie Night as they watch movies like They Live and Raiders of the Lost Ark while eating pizza. But the checks were bouncing and even after Balsillie put up money, he also had to mortgage his house to keep them out of the red.
He arranges a meeting with Verizon using a prototype that looks like a middle-school science project. However, John Woodman (Saul Rubinek) was impressed not with Balsillie’s salesmanship but Lazardis’ knowledge of computer networks. And they were off. Balsillie was smart to take Lazardis and not Fregin to the meeting. This creates a power struggle between Balsillie and Fregin over who can push Lazardis around. Johnson also directed and co-wrote the movie and he doesn’t hold back in showing how both his character and Howerton needed Lazardis to exploit. Balsillie wanted to be CEO but Lazardis would insist he’s co-CEO.
After a merger upon a threat of a hostile takeover with Carl Yarkowski (Cary Elwes) of Palm Pilot, Balsillie goes to Google, Microsoft and other tech companies stealing away the best of the best by fudging the value of their shares. And it would come down to what would Lazardis do. Would he stay the party animal pushover Fregin wanted or would he buckle down and get to work? Balsillie actually hires a bigger bulldog, Charles Purdy (wonderfully played by Michael Ironside) as the COO, who wouldn’t put up with anything especially when he was told it’s bad luck to do work on Movie Night.
Of course, it was only a matter of time until someone came along and did something a little bit different and a whole lot better. And that was the iPhone. While this is going on, there is lack of communication between Balsillie, Fregin and Lazardis. The latter is even surprised as the engineers to see that Purdy has been hired. And as Fregin and Lazardis are getting calls from the securities commissions, they really have no idea of why they’re being called. Balsillie is using his money, wealth and power to try to buy a major hockey league team as he was a huge fan. He was trying to acquire both the Pittsburgh Penguins and Nashville Predators with the hopes of moving one to Waterloo.
And if you’ve seen movies like this or know even the basic history of BlackBerry, you’ll know it doesn’t have a happy ending. Well, maybe not happy, but BlackBerry is no longer in existence except for a small percentage of the population who still use them. (Eminem claims to be one.) You might have one or more in a drawer somewhere, like I do. The sad part is Lazardis is shown actually believing people wouldn’t like the touch screens that iPhone and then Samsung Androids would utilize because they’d miss the sound of the clicks of the keys. Like the lamplighters of yesteryear, he was pushing back fighting an uphill battle. Or maybe Lazardis just knew the inevitable was going to happen but was in self-denial.
Baruchel is basically been the ying to Jesse Eisenberg’s yang. There’s more of a likeability with his nerdy demeanor. I first saw him in the critically acclaimed and criminally underrated sitcom Undeclared which Judd Apatow created and Baruchel co-starred alongside Seth Rogen, Charlie Hunnam, Monica Keena and Carla Gallo before they become more household names. He was also cast in Million Dollar Baby where his ignorance is somewhat forgivable as he walks up to Morgan Freeman’s character using the N-word but saying he’s got nothing against them. He was also in the brilliant comedy satire Tropic Thunder alongside Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr. and others. He turns Lazardis in the central point of the movie as a man who just wanted to make a good, honest product.
Unfortunately, Lazardis wasn’t prepared for the realities of business. Sometimes you have to cut corners, which meant their labor costs would have to be slashed as work was to sent to China. And also, you shouldn’t always mix business and friendships unless you’re willing to talk honestly with each other. When Lazardis begins to buckle down, there is a strain on his relationship with Fregin who Johnson rightly takes out of the final act almost completely. The focus is more on the collapse of BlackBerry at this point.
However, unlike The Social Network, where Eisenberg played Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg as a Shakespearian character and the movie had a similar tone, this is more like the phrase, “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.” Balsillie never entertained the notion that the bottom would fall out because he wasn’t a tech person. And people knew that if they didn’t anticipate the next possible thing, BlackBerry would be the type of device people would use before iPhones and Androids. It’s similar to how the 8-Track gave rise to the cassette tape. The tech world and business in general is like playing chess – you have to anticipate multiple steps in the future and where to go when it happens.
Howerton is perfect as Balsillie even though his real-life counterpart has blasted the portrayal as 95 percent made up. He has called Howerton’s performance “brilliant.” Johnson seems to remind me of a comment made in the documentary Atari: Game Over where some of the video game programmers had strange eccentricities such as one didn’t like wearing pants and came to work just in his boxers. And we know what happened there. BlackBerry really needed a good liaison between the tech staff and the business staff. It didn’t. The real-life Fregin lives a low-profile life since the latter 2000s.
While 2023 seemed to be the Year of Product Placements as several biographical movies focused on Air Jordans, Beanie Babies, Tetris and even Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, this is one of the better movies up there with Air on how it’s structured and presented.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 