Flash of Genius
DIR: Marc Abraham • WRI: Philip Railsback • PRO: Gary Barber, Michael Lieber, Roger Birnbaum • DOP: Dante Spinotti • ED: Jill Savitt • DES: Hugo Luczyc-Wyhowski • CAST: Greg Kinnear, Lauren Graham, Jake Abel, Dermot Mulroney

Based on the real life story of Robert Kearns, the film follows a Detroit engineer who fought long and hard against the Ford Motor Company after they stole his design for an intermittent windshield wiper.

Greg Kinnear takes the leading role playing the inventor Robert Kearns, and his performance proves to be one of the only good outcomes of Flash of Genius.

Starting off in the 1960s (a highly unconvincing ’60s) Robert Kearns (half blind in one eye) is able to make a windshield wiper which is better for his poor vision and is then offered a very valuable deal selling the idea to Ford, only for them first to call off the deal and then later steal the idea. The rest of the story is focused on Kearns trying to get a court order and then losing the trust of his family.

First-time director Marc Abraham does make a good debut but he fails to capture enough interest. Kinnear clearly put a lot of work. But even though he puts in a strong performance and the supporting cast and the good writing mean that Flash of Genius is a nice feel-good film that may be worth the price of a ticket, it fails to deliver anything memorable.

Patrick Foster
(Read biog here)

Rated PG (see IFCO website for details)
Flash of Genius is released on 20th March 2009
Flash of Genius – Official website