Directing: A
Acting: A-
Writing: A
Cinematography: B
Editing: A

It’s not the story, it’s how it’s told. It’s good to remember that if you hear that there is a movie about the rise and fall of the first mass-market mobile device, the BlackBerry. Because this film, directed, co-written and co-starring Matt Johnson, is stunningly propulsive, edge-of-your-seat stuff. And it’s about a bunch of tech nerds who made it big, then came crashing down. Well, except the ones who got out at the company’s peak, such as Doug Fregin—who Johnson plays—who we are informed during end title cards is currently “secretly one of the richest people in the world.” Secretly? What does that mean? How do we know?

Whatever, it’s easy to trust that it’s true, considering he left BlackBerry in 2007. As depicted in BlackBerry the movie, the move was in response to longtime friend and Waterloo, Ontario-based Research In Motion cofounder Mike Lazaridis, and his single-minded drive to succeed at the expense of their friendship. Presumably the dynamics of their relationship are oversimplified, but as depicted here, it’s almost stunning what great drama it makes. That is, along with everything else we see onscreen.

It’s tempting to put BlackBerry in the same league with the revered 2010 David Fincher film The Social Network. Only time will tell if BlackBerry enjoys the same kind of enduring appreciation, and given the drastically different pop culture landscape today, I fear that it won’t. This movie may be doomed to be criminally under-seen forever. It opened last weekend at #14 at the box office. That was only on 449 screens, though, so where does it rank by per-screen averages? #14. Crap!

I assure you, this film deserves your eyeballs. Nearly everything about its construction is inspired, including the casting—particularly Jay Baruchel as Lazaridis, the severely introverted genius who designed the devices. This guy previously known from The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (2010) now has a peculiar cut of solid gray hair that makes him virtually unrecognizable. Nearly everyone in this film is unrecognizable, though, which also works very much in its favor. The most famous face here is that of Carey Elwes, in the surprisingly small part of former Palm Inc. CEO Carl Yankowski, intent on a hostile takeover of BlackBerry.

The ease with which the actors disappear into their parts, though, allows the movie itself to shine as an amazingly well-constructed whole. It is nearly impossible to tell a story that spans so many years—in this case, about fifteen—with such precision. Glenn Howerton plays “co-CEO” of BlackBerry Jim Balsillie as a tightly wound prick, but an incredibly effective one. His sharklike business instincts combined with Lazaridis’s deceptively quiet genius turn out to be quite the effective combination.

BlackBerry is adapted from a book, by Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff, itself reportedly an exhilarating read. Even without having read the book, I can tell you this is an exceptional adaptation, because it’s a legitimately exhilarating watch. It likely helps that McNish co-wrote the script, along with Matt Johnson and Matthew Miller. The Social Network may have been a skewering of the zeitgeist, particularly at the beginning of the last decade, but BlackBerry examines both the quick rise of the mobile device that preceded the iPhone, and the mistakes made in attempting to compete with it. In this case, it’s a product that quickly dominated the market (“the crackberry”) and then suffered an even quicker fall.

Matt Johnson and his co-writers pack plenty more into this tightly polished story, which clocks in at an impressively solid two hours—arguably more than anything else, this film deserves an Academy Award nomination for Curt Lobb’s editing. There’s not a single wasted or dull moment in this movie. I left the theater fired up to tell others to see it, which is a rare thing indeed.

*The higher they fly, the harder they fall . . . especially when they aren’t paying attention,*

Overall: A-