Chaotic, comedic and surprisingly personal — thumbs up for Jay Baruchel's BlackBerry

In the film BlackBerry, our first glimpse of Research In Motion (RIM) looks more like Rise of the Nerds meets Animal House.  The decor is equal parts AV club and computer camp. Movie posters and microchip schematics fight for space on the walls. In the middle of it all, RIM co-founder Mike Lazaridis scribbles names for a phone that will change everything.

The BlackBerry, the phone with the keyboard, ushered in our always-on, always-connected world. Today, the name is synonymous with failure. BlackBerry the movie blasts us back to the late 1990s and early 2000s when the company from Waterloo, Ont., dared to take on the telecom giants. 

So how do you make a film about a phone? 

First, start with the source material. Based loosely (and I mean loosely) on the book Losing the Signal by Sean Silcoff and Jacquie McNish, what sets BlackBerry apart from other slick business epics is director Matt Johnson. To be frank, it's the best thing he's ever done.

WATCH | BlackBerry official trailer:

The Canadian director is best know for scrappy films such as the moon hoax Operation Avalanche and the TV series Nirvanna the Band the Show. The Frank Zappa of the Canadian film industry, Johnson suffers no fools, break rules and established a frenetic shooting style early on with The Dirties.

Part of Johnson's genius is boiling the business bedlam down to three larger-than-life personalities. Jay Baruchel goes against type as Mike Lazaridis, the brilliant engineer who drove RIM's innovation. Johnson does double duty appearing on camera as Douglas Fregin, Mike's best friend and RIM co-founder. 

While Mike can redesign a modem with ease, he's a painfully ineffectual businessman. Enter Jim Balsillie, the carnivorous dealmaker who instantly sees the potential in RIM's new phone. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia's Glenn Howerton commits to the character entirely, from the shaved bald head to Balsillie's take-no-prisoners fury that convinces Mike that Jim can take RIM to the next level. 

While WeCrashed, Super Pumped and The Dropout ushered in a new wave of tech-inspired series, what separates BlackBerry isn't the feature film format, but Johnson's instincts. Like The Office sitcom, Johnson and his frequent cinematographer Jared Raab employ a loose handheld shooting style. At the RIM workshop the camera hovers, capturing the dorm-like atmosphere as Doug and his army of engineers alternate between playing Doom and constructing a phone that could access email. With quick edits and a fist-pumping soundtrack with everything from MC Hammer to Matthew Good, Johnson puts us in the trenches. The camera can be a silent confidant in sitcoms but with BlackBerry, it's a voyeur, catching Doug's crestfallen expression as Mike climbs into a car with Jim. 

WATCH | Jay Baruchel and Matt Johnson talking about challenging expectations playing Mike Lazaridis:

While BlackBerry bristles with chaotic comedic energy, Baruchel's performance as Mike Lazaridis is no joke. The insular inventor is far from the elastic-faced characters we've come to expect. There are no easy jokes, no punchlines to release the tension. Instead Baruchel channels his energy into Lazaridis's obsessive drive to make "the best phone in the world." Indeed, the only moments the engineer truly comes to life are when there's a problem to solve such as a hissing intercom, or finding a way to squeeze more data packets into cell tower. 

For the actor who's actively chosen to live and work in Canada and has a maple leaf tattooed over his heart, Mike Lazaridis is more than just a challenge. It seems kismet. As the pressure on the company grows we see him fighting against outsourcing production to China. Both Balsillie and Lazaridis took on the world from their home in Waterloo. For Baruchel, that makes them patriots and this a story worth telling. 

But the secret sauce to Jay's performance isn't the flag waving or the grey wig plastered to his head — it's his co-conspirator Matt Johnson. The role of Doug could have gone to any number of actors. Actors that would have likely added a little more star power. But Baruchel insisted it had to be Johnson. 

Why? As Baruchel told CBC News, "I wanted to jam with him." To him, it isn't a Matt Johnson film unless he's in them.  The result is great on-screen duo, each actor drawing on the other. Doug acting as Mike's buffer, keeping the chaos at bay. He's everything that Mike isn't — this loud, boisterous, shaggy-haired cheerleader keeping RIM's army of nerds motivated.