Oh, BlackBerry.
I wanted to like you! You’re an underdog story inspired by true events, in which nerds get rich and change the world! Oh, how I wanted to like you.
You were too much like your subject, though. You became pompous and focused on the wrong things.
To be fair, things weren’t all bad; kudos to the good stuff. While two nerds wonder if they’re on to something with this idea they’re calling a “smartphone”, we the audience know they are. The movie’s early scenes are therefore fun for us. Energetic, even. Pretty cool to be in the room where this world-changing idea was born.
And even better, fun becomes funny! When our nerds can’t get their idea off the ground, it seems that only a narcissistic, offensive megalomaniac can help them. This guy—his screaming at unsuspecting people—is equal parts magnetizing and comical. The actor’s portrayal of him? Impressively, scarily good.
So that’s the story. A revolutionary idea grows around these three, from diner booth to corporate powerhouse, with intrigue and legal trouble along the way.
Just a few nerds, in motion.
Lovely. But as the real BlackBerry company can attest, good parts do not guarantee a great product.
Take the camerawork. It’s a shaky, zippy, disorienting mess trying to convince us that we’re watching a documentary—which makes no sense, because in the beginning, the movie tells us that we aren’t. And despite the suit, nerd #1, and a couple of other folks delivering convincing performances, nerd #2 is so childlike and oblivious that he feels more like a movie character than a human being.
The most difficult part to overlook, though, seems to be why the movie was made in the first place.
Yea yea, it’s fun to see corporate intrigue and visionary nerds being socially incompetent, but why does this failed-company movie dumb down the failures? If these three people are important enough to center a movie around, then why aren’t we learning more about where they came from, or what motivated them as the years passed? Is corporate all the audience cares about?
In telling us a story of a company, BlackBerry fails to tell us a story about the people who built it. It is a hollow product that doesn’t live up to its potential.
A moment of contemplation. Or rage. It’s hard to tell with this guy.