My Review of "Blackberry"

Blackberry is a comedy that's based off the true events of the real life Blackberry phone company RIM. This movie came out in 2023 but you could have swore they made this movie during the early 2000s. It's a crazy blast from the past and if you're Canadian this movie has an extra blast of nostalgia to hit you.

It all starts out with the two founders of a small company called Research In Motion or RIM. The two founders are Mike and Doug. I'm sure they're both brilliant engineers but it's pretty obvious from the beginning that Mike is the one that takes everything seriously. The problem with Mike is that he's a very shy individual that doesn't have much people skills. Doug is his right hand man but he's a bit of a slacker and always looking for a good time in his own nerdy way.

They're on a mission to sell a new product that they're developing. Basically they are able to secure a free bandwidth for free internet. With this they've basically created a wireless texting communicator. People didn't realize what the big deal with it was until they realized that texting back in the day costed 10 cents a message. This would put the phone companies into a scramble because the messages would be free with their new proposed phone. Companies were trying to do this for a while but Doug and Mike were able to crack the code.

Mike isn't a good salesman but they did encounter a man by the name of Jim who would be able to change everything for them. The problem with Jim is that he's not a very well trustworthy guy. He's basically a ruthless cutthroat sociopath. Mike wasn't interested in their little endeavor until he gets fired for his underhanded dealings.

This movie pretty much ramps up to 100% real fast when Jim arrives in the team. He is the drill sergeant ready to get everything up and running like a major business. Pretty soon the business flies high but like Icarus they fly way too close to the sun and things start crashing on them.

I'm sure people of a certain age are very aware of the story of Blackberry but they probably don't know a lot of the small details they added to this movie. I don't know how much of the events are actually true but they are pretty wild if they are true. It certainly added to the grand adventure that the trio get involved with. Who knew this company had so much stuff going on in the background at the same time!

Due to the nature of the characters in this movie we also get a ton of comedy. Some of the comedy stems from the nerdy nature of the engineers and the extreme polar opposite personality of Jim as the narcissistic dictator. In some ways it reminded me of a longer episode of the TV show Silicon Valley. I loved that show and as this was based on true events that happened to be based in Canada it held a bigger place in my heart. They have a ton of Canadian references as Jim is a huge hockey fan.

Overall, I had a really good time with this one. It really surprised me as to how entertaining such a mundane subject as Blackberry could be. There's such a wide variety of fun in this that I think that a wide audience can appreciate this movie even if they didn't know the era or come from Canada. I have to give this movie a 7.5 out of 10. It is a movie that I will be recommending to my friends for sure.