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FIRST SMART PHONE
Posted June 25th, 2023 at 11:58 amNo Comments Yet
IN REVIEW
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CANADIAN MADE FOR THE ELECTRONIC HIGHWAY
By PETER THOMAS BUSCH
Everyone cannot seem to leave home without their smart phone.
But Director Matt Johnson shows how that was not always the case in the film, BlackBerry (2023).
Johnson also costars with Jay Baruchel as the founders of Research in Motion (RIM), Douglas Fregin and Mike Lazardis, who took the world from pagers and cell phones to smart phones.
The BlackBerry was initially marketed to the executive class with an ability to convey instantaneous electronic communications in a mobile business age still powered by fax machines in 1996.
Initially, RIM is floundering a bit with contracts for the manufacture of modems that gets reneged upon in a competitive market for electronics filled with pirates.
Lazardis and Fregin may be saved from financial ruin with this idea for a smart phone, but they have little business sense in this competitive oceanic world. So the founders recruit a shark to take the unique product to market.
Glenn Howerton plays Jim Balsillie the shark that goes up against the pirates.
The narrative flows from a small office where products are engineered and manufactured to the business negotiations taking place at a nearby diner to the eventually private executive jet meant for chief executive officers of successful global companies.
Balsillie buys-in to become co-CEO of RIM, but he would have to take out a second mortgage to make any progress in the development of the smart phone technology. This personal financial investment and trust in the product idea buys the loyalty of co-CEO Lazardis.
Baruchel takes his geeky screen persona and turns himself into a geeky computer innovator who actually knows what he is doing. Baruchel may be best known for the under-performing, awkward boxer-in-training that never gets anywhere in the film, Million Dollar Baby (2004).
RIM headquarters is situated in Waterloo, Ontario. And this distance from Silicon Valley allows the founders to avoid the ‘good enough’ development approach of similar California start-ups with Made in China stickers on their electronic products.
Lazardis resists this common approach until Balsillie brings the pressing need for prototypes for marketing purposes to his attention.
Balsillie’s ability to access cash flow and find investment partners with the prototypes becomes transformative for RIM and the development of an actual working device for wireless electronic communications.
The scenes are compelled forward with popular culture snippets, such as a scene from Star Trek showing James T. Kirk using a communicator and a scene showing Oprah announcing the development of the BlackBerry on her daytime television show.
The camera sends the narrative in motion by using a number of close-up shots in a row, including some early scene advances using symbol and metaphor that builds an initial burst of intrigue.
The script subtly drips in Canadian humor from beginning to end, while casting draws on Canadian talent for this CBC Films and TeleFilm Canada production.
BlackBerry is streaming on AppleTV in Canada.
(Rating System 0/.5/1) Categories: Promotion (.5) Acting (1) Casting (1) Directing (1) Cinematography (.5) Script (.5) Narrative (.5) Score (1) Overall Vision (1) TOTAL RATING: 7 OF 9 STAR RATING SYSTEM