Friday, October 3, 2008

Movie review: Flash of Genius

By Alex Bentley

One must always be careful when naming a film so as to not give critics a ready-made quip. For example, don’t name your film Unforgettable when even its stars can’t remember it five minutes after they leave the theater. Likewise, giving your film the name Flash of Genius and then not living up to that promise is just inviting derision.

Flash of Genius’ name is just one of several mistakes the filmmakers made with this movie. The most important flaw was thinking they could make an interesting story out of the life of Dr. Robert Kearns (Greg Kinnear), the man who invented intermittent windshield wipers, and his 15-year fight with Ford over who actually created them.

Kearns’ life could’ve been fascinating and his struggle with Ford could’ve been compelling; unfortunately, neither of those captures the imagination the way they’re depicted on screen. Kearns is a workaday professor/inventor with an adoring wife (Lauren Graham) and five cute kids – nice, but nothing that’s ultra-gripping. When he stumbles upon the idea for the intermittent windshield wiper (he calls it the Blinking Eye as he likens it to eyelids wiping away tears from an eye), he uses his automotive connections to take the invention to Ford … which promptly swipes the idea, leaving Kearns forlorn, angry, and obsessed with justice/revenge to the point of mania.

"My first windshield wiper was this big!"

The main problem with Flash of Genius has to do with pacing. They show Kearns coming up with his idea way too early in the movie, giving it no context to his life as a whole. They then drag out his ordeal with Ford over the remaining 110 minutes, almost making it feel like it’s never going to end. They also make the audience guess as to the time frame of the film; no year is ever given (though the hair, clothes, and cars strongly suggest the ‘60s/‘70s) and the story jumps months and sometimes years at a time. Here’s a hint: If you want an audience to root for your protagonist, don’t make his torment perpetual. Even crazy people catch some breaks every now and again.

Most of these flaws can probably be chalked up to director Marc Abraham and writer Philip Railsback. Abraham, while a very experienced producer (he’s worked on such varied films as Children of Men and Let’s Go to Prison), is making his directorial debut with Genius. Railsback is almost as inexperienced, having written only three films, the last coming out 13 years ago. Unproven filmmakers have made great films before, but both Abraham and Railsback appear not to have known when to say when.

The Kearns family celebrating the invention that will tear them apart.

Kinnear is, thankfully, the best part of the movie. He plays Kearns convincingly even when the story threatens to take away his charm altogether. Graham is fine as his wife, although she’s not given much to do other than to be almost saintly supportive of Kearns’ fixation on “justice.” Dermot Mulroney (and his groovy ‘60s hair) pops up at various points as Kearns’ automotive liaison, but he never makes much of an impact. Alan Alda attempts to give the proceedings a jolt in the arm late in the game, but by then it’s much too late to save the film.

This film was probably made with hopes of riding the biopic train to Oscar glory. Unfortunately, the filmmakers neglected to think beforehand that their subject may not have been the most film-worthy one out there, especially when they had to flesh out his story from a magazine article. Ultimately, Flash of Genius is far from it; see how easy they made it for me?

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• Arts > Movies / Film > Mainstream Movies