Reviewed by Justin Bateman
Stars Greg Kinnear, Lauren Graham, Dermot Mulroney, Alan Alda, Mitch Pileggi,
Jake Abel, Grant Boyle, Duane Murray, Bill Smitrovich | Written by Philip Railsback
UK certification 12 | UK RRP £17.99 | DVD Region 2 | Runtime 114 minutes | Directed by Marc Abraham
It’s the 1960s and college professor Bob Kearns (Kinnear) is frustrated by his car windshield wiper. It’s either too fast or too slow but being an engineer and inventor, he decides he can make his own intermittent wiper. After a few failed attempts, he finally cracks it and calls the part The Kearns Blinking Eye Motor.
Living in Detroit – Motor City – Kearns believes he’s hit on something eminently marketable and teams up with friend Gil Previck (Mulroney) who works in the car industry. Confident that eventually everyone will want the Blinking Eye, Kearns convinces Previck that should go straight to the top so after patenting the idea, they approach Ford. At first, the bigwigs at Ford seem interested but then decide against pursuing the idea for mass production. However, within a couple of years Kearns sees Ford cars on the road using his invention and realises he’s had his idea stolen.
The focus of the film is very much on Kearns and his battle not only with Ford but also in keeping his sanity and his family. Kinnear plays the obsessed inventor out for justice with a determined weariness and you can see how the weight of the ordeal is affecting him by the ever-deepening bags under his eyes. Lauren Graham is also excellent as his long-suffering wife Phyllis, and it’s good to see that she’s a fully-fleshed out, three-dimensional character. Oddly, given the prominence of this name on the project, Alan Alda’s role as Kearns’ lawyer is a bit ‘blink and you’ll miss him’ and feels like something of a token effort.
While it’s quite an interesting David versus Goliath story, the main problem is that Flash of Genius isn’t terribly cinematic. And given that it took Kearns many years to get to his big day in court, it’s perhaps no surprise that it feels a bit ponderous at times. Having said that, the production values are good, the cast is well above average and it’s all the more poignant for being a true story. Efficient if unspectacular.
EXTRAS ** Just an audio commentary with director Abraham, and some deleted scenes.