BLACKBERRY

In a world where smartphones have revolutionized our way of life, it’s easy to think that Apple founder Steve Jobs was the only business figure worth remembering. But the movie BLACKBERRY tells the fascinating tale of Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel), the Canadian man who created the first cellphone craze in the 1990s with the titular device and rode it to the heights of financial success, only to find that eventual greed and fraud and old-fashioned competition could bring him crashing down again.

The movie focuses on Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel), who founded the tech development company Research in Motion (RIM) with his friend Doug Fregin (played bv co-writer/director Matt Johnson). The two have assembled a team of fellow computer nerds to create a new type of phone centered around texting, but they’re all being taken for a ride by the companies that claim to be their clients – signing multimillion dollar deals that never actually pay.

After one particularly disastrous pitch with a cutthroat executive named Jim Balsilli (Glenn Howerton), they think their dream is over. But Jim can’t help being intrigued by their tenacity and raw ideas for the Blackberry phone, and offers to pay them $125,000 in exchange for a 33 percent stake in the company and becoming its CEO.

Desperate for cash and a real businessman who can give them all direction to convert their business from a nerds’ frat house into a viable business, Mike and Doug take the offer. Jim comes in cracking skulls with often profane tirades about how insane the RIM work environment is, but while he intimidates the RIM founders and employees, he quickly gets results and big deals for them.

But as the company starts flying high into success, Jim is shown to be incredibly greedy and willing to bend all sorts of finance industry regulations to assemble a team of top designers and businessmen. He’s also flying all over the country making outrageous personal deals outside the company, while Mike also develops a ruthless greed that drives a major wedge into his relationship with his best friend and co-founder Doug.

When the Securities and Exchange Commission starts calling to ask questions, things go to a whole new level of tension. Is Jim leading the company into criminal enterprises? Will Mike be too fearful of Jim and blinded by greed to take action and save his company?

BLACKBERRY joins a great collection of movies this year that do a greatly compelling job of telling the wild stories behind some of the biggest business successes on the planet, along with Apple +’s TETRIS, Amazon’s AIR and the newly streaming Apple + film THE BEANIE BUBBLE. These movies take what could be dry financial stories and give them the tension of thrillers, with strong and witty dialogue that keeps things fresh and fun for anyone to follow, even if they’re not into business.

These movies show capitalism to be the best economic system the planet has, in which risk and innovation can be rewarded with immense success. The twist in BLACKBERRY is that it also shows the dark side that occurs when corruption enters the mix – a message that’s also worthy of sharing with viewers.

The movie features terrific performances by the three leads, with Jim and Mike frequently at odds in both intense and comical fashion. Matt Johnson as Mike’s founding partner and best friend Doug is the MVP of this movie, however – proving himself to be a triple talent as the co-writer of the excellent screenplay and as director of this frenetic film that finds thrills in deals and backstabbing rather than car chases.

The one downside for viewers is that the movie features a lot of strong obscenities, with Jim in particular firing off a fusillade of “f” words in multiple scenes. On an artistic level, it works to show his unpredictable temper and the rage that made it difficult to trust in and work with him, although without him, RIM would have never gotten anywhere to begin with.

BLACKBERRY is a tale that involves fraud and deception, and lots of backstabbing, but it also shows the consequences that come with it. Altogether, it tells a tale that’s riveting and entertaining, but MVEGUIDE® advises extreme caution.