Flash of Genius

Get ready for the most action-packed movie about windshield wipers you will EVER see in your entire life!

Based on the true story and set in the mid-1960s, Greg Kinnear stars as Bob Kearns – a professor and inventor living in Detroit. He’s a smart, honest and inquisitive guy, so, when he starts to grow frustrated with the windshield wipers on his car, Bob goes to work to improve them.

As a result, he invents the first intermittent windshield wipers (they stop and start to clean the windshield without constantly annoying the driver), which is a development all of the big carmakers have been trying to accomplish. Ready to cash in on his invention, Bob tries to sell the product to Ford, and the company screws him big time by stealing the idea for themselves and giving him nothing in return.

Can Kearns get justice?

Did they really steal his idea, or make the breakthrough on their own?

What price is Kearns willing to pay to be right?

Normally, a movie about windshield wipers would be some sort of film shown at Springfield Elementary, but Flash of Genius is able to get beyond your natural trepidation to deliver a story we can all appreciate – a tale about one guy trying to stick it to The Man after The Man has taken advantage of him and stolen from him. Given what happens in this world on a daily basis, just about everyone not named Trump or Gates will be rooting for this underdog to get what is rightfully his, and prove you can’t get away with anything you want just because you have some money. The audience can thank Kinnear and the rest of the team for that, as well as a true story that is compelling.

Kinnear is one of the most underrated actors in Hollywood and it is his performance that makes Flash of Genius worth watching. He fills Kearns with an amazing wholesomeness, but also knows how to show the fight in his character, and brilliantly captures the moment when Kearns realizes he has been cheated. It’s a wonderful display of fear and confusion that may stand as some of Kinnear’s best work, especially as he shows us the pain and resulting troubles Kearns goes through.

Kinnear gets to shine because writer Philip Railsback (based on a New Yorker article by John Seabrook) and director Marc Abraham make Flash of Genius a movie about right and wrong, which might be concepts foreign to most in business today. Yes, the story is clichéd as the underdog takes on the seemingly insurmountable foe and the family guy gets kicked around by the big bad automaker, but there is inspiration in the predictable story told here.

Flash of Genius might not be the biggest movie of the week, it’s very predictable, they make Kearns a bit buffoonish at times, and this movie might not be the one you are dying to see, but give it a chance.

Flash of Genius is rated PG-13 for brief strong language.