6/27/2023 0 Comments Verizon blackberry link![]() The movie sprints through the company’s rise, compressing a lot of the story into lively montages shot in the style of a Steven Soderbergh heist film (or business procedural like his “ High Flying Bird” or “The Informant!”), often leaning into the innate ridiculousness of a scenario. But Mike, who stammers and cringes his way through any call asking for money, makes Jim “co-CEO.” He thinks there’s value in hiring someone who can strike fear in the heart of anyone who might try to take advantage of them, and knows how to sense when an important moment is imminent and seize it. “You know who’s afraid of sharks? Pirates,” Mike says. Doug sizes Jim up as a “shark” and is justifiably terrified of him. He senses that the duo is on the verge of something big and offers to make their problems disappear and grow the company if they make him CEO. ![]() Enter Jim Ballsillie ( Glenn Howerton), a domineering executive and hockey buff who feels unappreciated at his current job. ![]() They’re nerds habitually bullied by their clients, including one who owes them millions for products they already shipped and has been stringing them along for months. Like many creative geniuses, Mike and Doug lack the ruthlessness and nuts-and-bolts knowledge they need to survive and thrive in a capitalist system. Part one of the movie shows how Mike Lazaridis ( Jay Baruchel) and his partner Douglas Fregin (Johnson) created the BlackBerry and figured out how to let huge numbers of them operate on the same cellular network without crashing the system, then watched as its popularity spread, putting them on the verge of becoming tech icons in the mold of Steve Jobs. The BlackBerry, of course, was the handheld device that the iPhone and its imitators wiped out of the marketplace. Imagine watching only the first and last episodes of an excellent TV drama-or the MoneyBro equivalent of “ Full Metal Jacket,” the only war film that shows naive recruits being trained/brainwashed at the beginning of the process and their cynical, hardened-by-war, final incarnations, but skips the middle part showing how the change happened. The ellipsis in the middle gives the film a more intriguing energy than it would have had than if it had followed the standard playbook of meticulously tracking the rise and fall of a product and its makers. ![]() It shows us the beginning and end of this story but nothing else. The most fascinating thing about the script, co-written by Johnson and Matthew Miller, is its structure. It’s one of the coolest portrayals of losers doomed to be historical footnotes that you’ll ever see, with a needle-drop soundtrack so cannily chosen that every song on it will probably be used in a commercial for a Fortune 500 company within the next two years.ĭirected and co-starring Matt Johnson and inspired by Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff’s business history, Losing the Signal, “BlackBerry” is shot in a raggedy, trembling handheld style that suggests what an episode of “The Office” guest-scripted by David Mamet might have felt like. I’ve seen colleagues insist that “BlackBerry” should be shown in business school classes as a cautionary tale, but it’s easier to imagine a group of young guys in ties putting it on after a long night of carousing and reciting the dialogue together until they pass out. Instead of shooting, stabbing, or beating each other, or chasing each other in vehicles, characters in MoneyBro cinema insult each other, construct elaborate traps that play on insider knowledge or exploit an opponent’s weaknesses and pathologies, score vindicating promotions and huge paydays, and try to see how long they can keep a streak going before someone slaps handcuffs on them. “BlackBerry” is a MoneyBro movie par excellence, right up there with “ Wall Street,” “ Glengarry Glen Ross,” “ Boiler Room,” and “ The Wolf of Wall Street.” It shares their key, defining trait: even though its main characters are either charismatic sociopaths or sheep, and the capitalist system they operate in is deeply corrupt and rewards men without morals or conscience, the story is so excitingly told, the performances so watchable, and the dialogue so quotable that it becomes the verbal equivalent of an action flick-kinetic, suspenseful, and sometimes unexpectedly beautiful and weirdly moving.
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