Country: United States
Genre: Drama/ Mainstream
Director: Marc Abraham
Year: 2008
Rating: 
TRASH CINEMA HIGHLY RECOMMENDED MOVIE
As if any additional proof of the perfidy of corporate America was needed, Flash of Genius gives us yet another example of them giving the little guy the shaft.
Bob Kearns (Greg Kinnear) has been inventing little gewgaws since he was 14 years old. Then one day, while driving with his family in the rain, he gets the idea of the intermittent windshield wiper. Eventually, he takes a prototype to Ford. They promptly steal his invention, so little nobody Bob Kearns turns around and sues one of the most powerful corporations in America.
Good luck with that.
To the great credit of writer Philip Railsback and director Marc Abraham, they don’t make Kearns’ odyssey seem remotely easy, although my guess is that the reality was even uglier than what they depicted.
We all know that Flash of Genius wouldn’t have been made if Kearns hadn’t ultimately been victorious, but he pays a heavy price along the way. This is not a light, happy, feel good movie. I’m not going to give a lot of details because that would spoil the movie for you, but let me just say that even though we know the outcome, the filmmakers generate a lot of suspense.
There’s a lot of credit to go around. Greg Kinnear is one of our most likeable actors, and he’s got his work cut out for him with the character of Bob Kearns. Yes, Bob is a nice guy, and he’s principled, but he’s beyond stubborn, edging over into completely unreasonable. We see that in the film, and yet we still root for him, thanks to Kinnear.
Lauren Graham does well with the role of Bob’s long-suffering wife, Phyllis. She manages all the gradations of love, exasperation, exhaustion, hurt, and resignation you could possibly want. The kids aren’t quite as convincing, but good enough. Alan Alda is wonderful as a lawyer who is principled, but not principled enough for Bob. Dermot Mulroney gives a very interesting performance as Gil Privick, Bob’s best friend, who holds the patents to the intermittent windshield wiper, along with Bob. For a while, Mulroney’s shady demeanor made me suspect that Gil might have sold out Bob for a cut of the profits, but I’m not going to tell you if I was right or not.
Oh, man, the Ford guys are beautiful. Tim Kelleher is suitably slimy as bagman Charlie Defao, who offers suitcases full of money to Bob to drop the lawsuit. (Bob refuses because Ford won’t acknowledge that they stole his invention.) Even better is actor Mitch Pileggi as Macklin Tyler, the corporate scumbag from Ford who screwed over Bob in the first place. Watch the way his evil mug transforms into a smarmy smile when he first greets Bob, knowing full well he’s going to stick a knife in his back.
Another big contributor to the success of the film is the flawless production design. The beginning of the film takes place in the latter part of the sixties, just as the culture was changing. The organization man, the man in the gray flannel suit, all that still existed, but you start to see the changes in music, in Bob’s kids. It’s dead on accurate.
For the music, the filmmakers chose mostly soul music from Detroit, which was probably a wise idea. It’s appropriate for the period, and it’s timeless, so it won’t jar a modern audience too much.
Really, there isn’t much I can say in criticism.
I will say, though, that somebody looking for cheap thrills won’t like this movie much — there’s nothing trashy about it. It’s a realistic drama about the reality of corporate power in America, and it doesn’t pull it’s punches all that much.
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This entry was posted on Sunday, November 29th, 2009 at 2:53 pm and is filed under Drama, Highly Recommended, Mainstream, Movie Reviews By Country, United States. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Not pretty but somehow elegant.
My Dad, Robert Kearns, worked on the film for about 5 years before his death. Greg never got a opportunity to meet him, but did a magnificent job of becoming him.
Perhaps more would have seen this movie in the US had it not come out just as the Automotive Industry started whining about about their inability to manage their businesses without Billions of OUR dollars?
I’m proud to have been a consultant on the movie and to have participated in the reality.
Bob Kearns won 5 jury trials against some of the biggest corporations in the world. It was what he had learned in school,it was what he as an engineering professor taught.
Patents were granted to protect the inventors rights.
Perhaps his idealism was from his Jesuit training at the University of Detroit.
His U.S. Marine Corps training taught him when a bully picks a fight you don’t back down. No matter the odds.
As for the other players:
The law firm HDP.com that started the suits on our behalf was allowed to represented Chrysler against us?
The Federal Judge Avern Cohn who had presided over the case and his former silk-stocking law partners along with Henry Ford II’s friend Max Fisher, were estimated to have made a 2000% profit on the sale of property for Chrysler’s World Headquarters (Detroit: Race and Uneven Development 1990)
Dennis Kearns
http://Dennis-Kearns.com
The arrow that hits the bull’s eye is the result of 100 misses.
Mr. Kearns,
Thank you so much for your enlightening comments. Not that you need or desire my approval, but you have every reason to be proud of your father.