'BlackBerry' Review: Matt Johnson's Superb Biopic Gives The Competition a Run For Its Money
BlackBerry has no right to be as good as it is, but its frantic style, masterful performances, and tight script make it one of the very best, if not the best, biopic of the year.
Ben Affleck’s Air is a great movie, but Matt Johnson’s BlackBerry obliterates its formulaic structure and transforms a relatively standard “rags to riches” story into a frantically paced cautionary tale on the dangers of an evolving technological society and putting your faith into a person who doesn’t have your best interests at heart. At the center of BlackBerry is the relationship between Research In Motion co-founders Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel) and Douglas Fregin (Matt Johnson), who bring Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton) to the company to turn it around. Mike and Jim will present the BlackBerry to Bell Atlantic (now known as Verizon). With its innovative keyboard, encrypted text messaging, and mousepad, the BlackBerry is poised to revolutionize the cellphone industry…until Steve Jobs threatens to bankrupt the company with the arrival of the keyboard-less iPhone.
Unlike Air, BlackBerry is unconcerned about the painstaking recreation of how X was made and how the main characters got to X. It showcases how Lazaridis designed the BlackBerry and then chronicles the swift and anxiety-inducing downfall of the company, brought upon by Balsillie’s corporate decisions. He wants to use his leverage at RIM to buy the Pittsburgh Penguins, relegate them to Hamilton, Ontario, and commit stock fraud to hire various engineers from other companies (with SungWon Cho playing one of them) grow the business, which attracts the attention of the SEC. It stays true to its “biopic” roots while attempting to reinvent the formula by showcasing the most interesting aspects of the story. We already know that BlackBerry will become a major success…until the iPhone hits the market. That’s boring. What matters is how Lazaridis reacts to the iPhone and will essentially kill his company when he pitches the infamously bad BlackBerry Storm to Verizon.
When the iPhone arrives on the market, that’s when BlackBerry transforms itself from good to great. The film’s energy always moves frantically, à la John Cassavetes’ The Killing of a Chinese Bookie or the Safdie Bros.’ Uncut Gems. The handheld camerawork from cinematographer Jared Raab adds to the consistent tension permeating each and every frame of the film, with stellar performances from Jay Baruchel, Glenn Howerton, and Michael Ironside elevating the on-screen suspense. I’ll admit to not being the biggest fan of Baruchel’s work. I’ve always found him to be an amazingly unmemorable actor with a forgettable screen presence. I’d like to take all of this back because he gives a potentially Oscar-worthy turn in BlackBerry, which is surprisingly dramatic. Baruchel has always excelled in comedies through his natural personality. Still, he actively acts in BlackBerry and plays Lazaridis with such complexity that even non-fans of the actor will end up admiring him.
His chemistry between Johnson’s Fregin is similar to that of Jesse Eisenberg’s Mark Zuckerberg and Andrew Garfield’s Eduardo Saverin in David Fincher’s The Social Network. Johnson never hides away from those comparisons, which is the only part where BlackBerry doesn’t soar as high as it should, but it’s still pretty damn high regardless. In retrospect, Fregin and Lazaridis’ friendship should’ve been fleshed out a bit more because it’s the only arc that is the most clichéd and less polished one. Whenever the movie cuts to their downfall, it isn’t as interesting as Howerton chewing up the screen as his character swiftly moves from one place to another to grow RIM/BlackBerry for personal gain.
As Balsillie, Howerton brilliantly plays the movie’s main antagonist with the energy of a coked-up CEO always running around at 120mph and only caring about filling his pockets with as much money as possible. He’s one of the main reasons RIM failed miserably, alongside Lazaridis’ shortsighted ambitions. As much as Balsillie presents himself as a winner and as someone who never takes no for an answer, he’s exactly the personification his favorite Canadian hockey team has taken outside of Toronto (if you know, you know): a loser. He doesn’t want to admit it, but Balsillie is a total loser who takes the opportunity to work with RIM to benefit himself and gets what he deserves in the end. It’s terrifically fascinating to see him make a fool out of himself from beginning to end, particularly when he meets NHL commissioner Gary Bettman (brilliantly played by Canadian icon Mark Critch).
I feared BlackBerry would get “too Canadian” in its filmmaking techniques and references. But Johnson keeps them at a minimum, and the references only enhance the story and its characters. It’s not a perfect biopic, but BlackBerry is one of the most inspired pieces of filmmaking I’ve seen from a genre that has grown stale as of late. Its fast-paced energy brings in an impeccable amount of style and verve that felt lacking in films like Tetris and Air, while Glenn Howerton and Jay Baruchel give career-best performances. If Air was “the crowd-pleasing dad movie of the year,” BlackBerry is the complete antithesis of that. However, Air is the happy meal, and BlackBerry is the prime rib. Some aspects aren’t as polished as they should be, but, as of right now, it’s the best biopic of the year.