Film Review of the Week

Drama

BlackBerry (15)

Review: The fierce rivalry between Android and Apple has dominated the smartphone market for the majority of the 21st century but these two brands were beaten to the technological punch by a Canadian company that rose to dominance then crashed into obsolescence. Writer-director Matt Johnson and co-writer Matthew Miller pay tribute to unlikely trailblazers in a bittersweet comedy drama inspired by Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff’s non-fiction book Losing The Signal: The Untold Story Behind The Extraordinary Rise And Spectacular Fall Of BlackBerry. Prefaced by a disclaimer that this entertaining fiction is inspired by real people and real events, Johnson’s picture unfolds in an age of analogue data modems and fax machines, when technical giants dared to dream of a working day when “men no longer commute, they communicate”.

A sharp script contrasts the goofball culture of Research in Motion, creators of the BlackBerry based in Waterloo, Ontario, with the relentless, profit-driven ambition of co-CEO Jim Balsillie, who barks orders like an escapee from the pages of David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross. Glenn Howerton devours the screen as this unscrupulous shark surrounded by fun-loving nerds, sparking incendiary on-screen rivalry with Jay Baruchel’s mild-mannered technical wizard. A brutal tug of war between polar opposites dominates the two-hour running time of a sleek satire that merrily mines nostalgia and deftly incorporates technical jargon without feeling like a dry history lesson.

In 1996, engineering student Mike Lazaridis (Baruchel) and best friend Douglas Fregin (Johnson) stand on the precipice of creating the world’s first smartphone but a lack of cut-throat boardroom acumen prevents the duo from taking their company to the next level. Unscrupulous businessman Jim Balsillie (Howerton), recently fired from Sutherland-Schultz, bulldozes his way into a position of power by investing 125,000 dollars of his own money and remortgaging his home in exchange for a 33% stake in RIM and the title of co-CEO.

The BlackBerry becomes a dominant force in the communications market and Balsillie ignoring Lazaridis’ warnings about bandwidth limitations to demand higher sales and defend against a hostile takeover bid from Palm CEO Carl Yankowski (Cary Elwes). Dreams sour in 2007 when Steve Jobs launches the iPhone, which Lazaridis dismisses as “an overdesigned trying-to-do-too-much toy that will crash any network gullible enough to take it on”. He fails to hear a death knell for his company.

BlackBerry perfectly encapsulates the scrappy, unorthodox approaches of Lazaridis and Fregin with twitchy handheld camerawork more suited to a fly-on-the-wall documentary. The seriousness of every setback is palpable and Johnson confidently walks a tightrope strung between comedy and tragedy. He’s sure-footed when everyone on screen is at the mercy of gravity and reckless ambition and heading for a wince-inducing fall.

Horror

The Exorcist: Believer (15)

Review: Fifty years after its original theatrical release, William Friedkin’s supernatural horror The Exorcist, based on the best-selling book by William Peter Blatty, still possesses a rare ability to terrorise febrile imaginations and send shivers down the spine. Director David Gordon Green’s sequel to the 1973 film, the opening salvo of a trilogy modelled on his 2018 resurrection of the Halloween franchise, performs no such miracles despite the eagerly anticipated return of Oscar-winner Ellen Burstyn as Chris MacNeil, whose daughter Regan was possessed in the original.

“We’ve met before,” Chris tells the obscenity-spewing demon that inhabits two young classmates in The Exorcist: Believer. Audiences have certainly seen this unholy battle of body and blood before, and Gordon Green offers nothing new to an overstuffed genre besides transplanting the action hundreds of miles down the east coast from Washington DC to Georgia where demonic fire can be fought with ritualistic African American folk magic and spiritual practices. His well-executed but thrill-starved nightmare reprises Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells on the soundtrack and heavily telegraphs a final scene as the dramatic “amen” to whet appetites for a second film, The Exorcist: Deceiver in 2025.

Gordon Green and co-writers Scott Teems and Danny McBride choose the real-life 2010 magnitude 7.0 earthquake in Haiti, which struck near the capital Port-au-Prince and claimed an estimated 220,000 lives, as the backdrop to their opening sequence. Photographer Victor Fielding (Leslie Odom, Jr) loses his heavily pregnant wife Sorenne (Tracey Graves) to Mother Nature’s fury but a baby girl, blessed in the womb by Haitian ritual, is delivered safely into his arms. Thirteen years later, Victor and headstrong daughter Angela (Lidya Jewett) are settled in Percy, Georgia, surrounded by God-fearing folk like Angela’s classmate Katherine (Olivia O’Neill) and her parents (Norbert Leo Butz, Jennifer Nettles).

The girls head into the woods after school and three days later, Angela and Katherine return with no memory of time elapsed. “Something they did out there opened them up for an unholy spirit to enter,” declares Katherine’s mother. ER nurse Ann (Ann Dowd), who is Victor’s next-door neighbour, furnishes him with a copy of Chris MacNeil’s best-selling memoir A Mother’s Explanation to hammer home the reality of Angela’s demonic possession. Victor contacts Chris and implores her to save his daughter, supported by local pastor Don Revans (Raphael Sbarge) and Hoodoo practitioner Dr Beehibe (Okwui Okpokwasili).

The Exorcist: Believer revisits imagery from the original film, confirming evil never dies when Hollywood is passing around a collection plate to audiences haunted by the MacNeil family’s harrowing ordeal in 1973. Burstyn lends gravitas to her scenes while Odom, Jr’s grief-stricken single parent feels inert for extended periods, surrendering to young co-stars with impressive make-up that captures their characters’ tormented souls. Gordon Green’s picture inflicts no such distress on us.

Drama

The Great Escaper (12A)

Review: Emotions run high in a lovingly fictionalised account of the 89-year-old former Royal Navy officer who made headlines in 2014 when he snuck out of a care home in East Sussex to attend the 70th anniversary commemoration of the Normandy landings, a turning point for Allies in the Second World War. Not only does Oliver Parker’s moving picture deal sensitively with the trauma of conflict through the eyes of Bernie Jordan, portrayed by Sir Michael Caine, but The Great Escaper also marks the final screen appearance of Glenda Jackson. Delightful on-screen chemistry between two national treasures of UK cinema galvanises scenes in The Pines care home where screenwriter William Ivory embroiders the 60-year marriage of Bernie and wife Rene with earthy humour.

Platonic love stories between residents and carers, and veterans who have buried their anguish for almost 70 years, embellish Bernie’s 48-hour odyssey to France including a choice one-liner to deflect criticism of one inebriated British veteran from his American counterparts: “We started earlier than you. Like the Second World War.”

Parker’s film opens in June 2014 on a windswept Hove seafront where Bernie (Caine) is happily settled with wife Rene (Jackson) at a care home managed by Judith (Jackie Clune) and her team including Adele (Danielle Vitalis) and Martin (Brennan Reece). Unfortunately, Bernie hasn’t secured a place on the official British Royal Legion trip to France where The Queen will meet veterans. He needs to make the trip to Normandy for personal reasons and with Rene’s terse blessing (“Just go!”), he sneaks out of The Pines with a plastic carrier bag containing a fresh pair of underpants and toothbrush.

Making his own way to Dover, Bernie befriends young veteran Scott (Victor Oshin), who lost a leg during the war in Afghanistan, and former Royal Air Force pilot Arthur (John Standing), whose daredevil heroics in a cockpit make Bernie feel light-headed (“I get giddy on the top of the bus!”) Camaraderie between Bernie and Arthur strengthens the men’s resolve while back in the UK, Judith raises the alarm about her missing resident and the media splashes the octogenarian’s face across front pages.

Punctuated by flashbacks to first flushes of romance between a young Bernie (Will Fletcher) and Rene (Laura Marcus), The Great Escaper trades on the undimmable star power of the lead actors to de-romanticise old age in the 21st century. Caine and Jackson are magnificent, gently tugging heartstrings in naturalistic scenes of tenderness and unerring companionship. Director Parker confidently orchestrates brief wartime interludes but the heaviest emotional blows are reserved for a visit to the cemetery in Bayeux and a moment of mutual understanding between Bernie and a group of German veterans. A touching of hands, weathered by conflict, speaks volumes.