Blackberry (2023) Review

Blackberry was quite popular when I was around grade 6 and apparently around that year, it was one of the golden ages of it, according to a fictional biopic movie under the same title Blackberry. The film tells of the rise and fall of once the “coolest” smartphone that every “cool” kid must have. It was one of the status symbols of that time and even other brands follow a similar design with QWERTY layout keyboard. There was a lot more information that you can gather from the movie, especially the founders Mike Lazaridis and his good friend, Doug Fregin. This movie was also loosely adapted from a book written by Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff. If you’re a fan of social networks, this one was similar and highlighted the tech scene in Canada as compared to Social Network that was focusing on the silicon valley tech scene. Anyhow, without further adieu, let’s dive into this movie.

Mike Lazaridis and Dough Fregin are two friends who are inseparable. They are completely different in nature but managed to help one another. Mike was quiet and has low social and communication skills while Dough was the one who has it yet has a laid back anarchistic approach to life. Both work on a company they own called RIM which works manufacturing devices for the US Robotics but the deal was completely a dud. They were also about to pitch in their next product called Pocket Link to a businessman Jim Balsillie. Because Mike's inability to pitch his invention even with the help of Dough, it was completely ignored. At the same time, Jim, an enthusiastic businessman was fired from his job and while he was back at the office, he saw Mike’s sketch for the pocketlink.

Both of them eventually work together with Jim acting as the CEO of the company. Jim also notices the lack of seriousness in the company under dough who has a much more laid back attitude towards the job. The engineers were brilliant but they didn’t have a good command line that tells them to get the job done. As the company grew to eventually become Blackberry, they were under a hostile takeover that forced Jim to switch their marketing. They ended up marketing the device to the elites and managed to sell a lot of products to them. While avoiding the takeover, Jim hired Purdy and was changing the working atmosphere in the company. At the same time when the Iphone was announced, they saw a competition and Mike made promises that he should not have. From that moment on, all the saw was constant loss and especially it heightened when they were under the investigation of SEC. In the end, due to the failed promises that Mike delivered and management failure,blackberry stopped operating and even manufacturing the product.

In my opinion, the characters of this movie who are played by Jay Baruchel and Matt Johnson were really good. Matt was convincing enough that he was the annoying friend. Whereas Jim, played by Glenn Howarton, was really good at mimicking typical business guys in the tech field. He was cunning, ruthless, and willing to do everything it takes to get the job done even if it's in the gray area and might be lawfully wrong. The storyline itself was pretty convincing despite being loosely adapted and is considered a fiction. You know, it makes me think that the reason why Blackberry was failing was because of the work environment that wasn’t really serious and Mike who has a bad communication skill and never really asks for any help on that. I think Blackberry was a good product, it was the inside person and people around Mike, even Mike himself that enabled the product not to keep up with the market. Overall though, this movie was intriguing to watch and one of the best biographies that I have watched so far. If you want to know the rise and fall of Blackberry, this is really worth watching. In my dictionary, this movie gets 7.5 out of 10.