About 400 RIM colleagues gathered on May 25th and refreshed our friendships and reminded ourselves of the countless remarkable achievements we shared at Research In Motion. Word spread quickly about the gathering and within five days all the tickets were sold for the three opening day screenings of the BlackBerry movie at the Princess Cinema in Waterloo. The local CTV coverage shows the street was filled with conversation an hour before the movie began and colleagues were still talking past midnight.
In many ways it is a very entertaining movie. But the best commentary about the movie is made by past-CFO Dennis Kavelman in the National Post. I echo his concerns that most people are unable to separate the many comedic fictional characterizations from the genuine behaviour of the company leaders. The poster of the movie shows a light bulb over the head of the Mike Lazaridis character which is entirely appropriate. But the devil horns above the head of the Jim Balsillie character I find insulting -- given how Jim is characterized in the movie, I think they could have gone with #!*
If you have seen any movie that begins with "based on real events" then you hopefully already understand that movie markers, especially ones who are attempting to mix comedy and drama, will twist facts and invent situations to suit their entertainment goal. As one simple example, Jim and Mike knew each other long before Jim joined the company in 1992, but the movie timeline has that introduction happening in 1996. If you watch this movie, please don't think you are learning the sequence of events or gaining any understanding of the behaviour or the history of any character. And remember that the company still employees a lot of people (one movie attendee has been with the company 29 years) and the company had revenue of U$718M last year (more than the FY2004 revenue, but a long way down from the high of $19.9 billion in 2011).
The RIM-only audience laughed several times and cheered for the Waterloo location shots. But they booed loudly when the movie makes a harsh slap in the face of Canadian engineers. That brief scene has no place in this movie, especially from Canadian film makers, and Mike would NEVER think nor say such a thing. With that scene, the movie instantly flips away from funny for the RIM audience. To further make my point about Mike, he was masterful in front of customers. I was with Mike in Europe in August 1993 when Mike said to me, "there is no reason we cannot be as big as Motorola". At that point there were at most twenty employees at the company and Motorola did $17B in revenue. Mike and Jim worked in lock-step for years. Mike had a vision for where RIM was going and the two of them seemed like they could finish each other's sentences.
After the movie, I spoke with the Director while he signed posters on the street. I asked if he can make any adjustments before the CBC television showing which he said is planned for November. He quickly and enthusiastically confirmed that he could (without saying that he would). The movie ends with the Jim character drinking a beer in a little fishing boat. A more appropriate ending image would have been from 2009 when Stephen Hawking made his first visit to the Perimeter Institute founded in 2000 by Mike. Rather than the three existing short sentences about Doug, Jim and Mike, the Director could attempt to tally the hundreds of millions of dollars these three business and community leaders (and many other RIM employees such as Michael Barnstijn and Louise MacCallum) have contributed to not-for-profit causes across Waterloo Region and far more broadly across Canada. Matt Johnson, please do the right thing and bring some balance to the force of this movie. Sorry, did you see Star Wars? (funniest line in the movie).
