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Friday
03Oct2008

Movie Review - 'Flash of Genius'

DateFriday, October 3, 2008 at 12:04AM
Flash of Genius

Starring Greg Kinnear, Lauren Graham, and Alan Alda
Directed by Marc Abraham
Rated PG-13


flashofgenius_galleryposter.jpg Every time The Insider is on cable, I'll watch whatever is left of it by the time I channel surf by. It seems that it's been on more in the last six months than it was previously, or maybe I'm just lucky enough to catch it.

The reason, I think, that I sit through a three-hour movie I've seen over a dozen times is because so many things about it are compelling. Russell Crowe's first American leading man role (he deserved the Oscar here, not for Gladiator), Al Pacino showing the strength and volatility that made him one of the best actors of his generation, Michael Mann's gorgeous, steely direction, Christopher Plummer as Mike Wallace, and that distinctly American ideal that truth will out.

Watching Flash of Genius is a bit like a community theatre version of The Insider. It doesn't punch as hard - ever - it can't showcase anything outside of a lead performance, its screenplay is messy, its construction is a little confusing, and the stakes just don't seem as high. Without a doubt, it's an interesting story, maybe even an important one, but that doesn't mean there's a great movie in here.

Bob Kearns (Greg Kinnear) invented the intermittent windshield wiper. If you're over 35, odds are, you've driven a car that had two options for your wipers: Off and on. Kearns created a way to let you determine how much wiper you needed. Flash of Genius tells us his invention is now on over 145 million cars. The Ford Motor Company, located in Kearns' hometown of Detroit, stole his idea, manufactured the intermittent wiper, and sold it for a dozen years, welching on a manufacturing deal with Kearns, who saw his entire life turned upside down by the experience.

His mission became not just to get his money, but to get his justice. Kearns wanted everyone to know the intermittent wiper was his invention and that Ford deliberately took it and claimed it as its own. And then the movie becomes a melodramatic reading of The Little Engine That Could.

Kinnear is surprisingly strong as Kearns. There's a clarity and single-mindedness in his performance that we don't see as often as we should. It's not that he's a bad actor, but he hasn't hit that level yet where he's never Greg Kinnear. This one comes very close. It's actually a shame it's wasted on this movie, which otherwise offers us very little.

Director Marc Abraham has been in the business a long time, but this is his first time as director. It shows. There are questionable pans and zooms that never enhance or even match the events in the scene, and only stick in your mind because they don't seem to have a point. The timeline is very confusing. It begins with one scene, jumps back to three years earlier, then two months later, eighteen months later, seven months later, two months later, then four years after that.

Using months and dates would work a lot better; there's simply no way to follow when the story takes place, outside of a context that only connects its scenes with other scenes, and even then, you have to pay attention. How the movie advances 12 years is a real mystery, because there's at least a half-dozen years Flash of Genius never bothers to cover. It's a small thing, which also means it would be a small thing to correct.

If you're a fan of Greg Kinnear, you'll probably really enjoy his work in Flash of Genius. He's funny without going over the top, and he makes you root for him. But recommending the rest of this film is very hard to do.

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AuthorColin Boyd | | in | Print ArticlePrint Article | | CommentPost a Comment |

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