‘BLACKBERRY’ SUCCEEDS ON SCREEN

BY MEGAN BIANCO

On paper, Matt Johnson’s new historical drama, BlackBerry, sounds like a parody of modern biopics. Comedy actors Glenn Howerton and Jay Baruchel as the stars? Who is asking for a movie about the rise of an outdated smartphone in 2023? Why bother when we already have plenty of tech flicks out there?

And yet, shockingly, it’s actually pretty good. The leads are very strong and aren’t out of place, and the humor is appropriate without being too silly. I would even go as far as to say the film probably has the strongest structure out of all the business dramas released recently.

In 1996 Waterloo, Canada, computer engineers Mike Lazaridis (Baruchel) and Doug Fredon (Johnson) are struggling to sell their invention of phone-plus-email that’s also half the size of a portable phone.

Entrepreneur Jim Balsillie (Howerton) suddenly pitches them an offer to get their product off the ground if they hire him as CEO of their tiny tech company, Research in Motion. Within a decade, their device, the BlackBerry, goes from a pipe dream to a major player, with only Apple’s products as their competition in the 2000s.

But with all good things comes temptation—especially for Jim.

What’s interesting about BlackBerry is