Arizona Reporter - Movie Reviews - 06/10
Flash Of Genius
By Harvey Karten (AZR) - Maybe because I live in one of the bluest of the blue states, I get the impression that moviegoers love to watch stories of little guys taking on the big corporations and winning—David conquers Goliath. John Grisham, one of America's best-selling writers of fiction, comes from a red state, however, and there's no indication that his southern area is any different. (Then again, Grisham's endings are often pyrrhic victories, the innocent victim winning the case but losing the compensation). "Flash of Genius" is one such tale, that of a bright engineer, a college teacher, whose real love is not so much for academe as for the joys of creating. He is an inventor, doubtless preferring that title to that of professor. He has an idea for something that to us may seem banal—after all, he did not inventing such "successes" as the Concorde jet or a historic breakthrough like the telephone or radio. He has created the first intermittent windshield wiper, one that can go back and forth but whose speed can be adjusted as you would a metronome. He expects to be compensated but more important to him is the glory and satisfaction that would come from being named the creator.
FLASH OF GENIUS
Universal Pictures
Reviewed for Arizona Reporter by Harvey Karten
Grade: B-
Directed by: Marc Abraham
Written By: Philip Railsback, from John Seabrook's New Yorker article
Cast: Greg Kinnear, Lauren Graham, Dermot Mulroney, Jake Abel, Daniel Roebuck, Tim Kelleher, Bill Smitrovich, Alan Alda
Opens: October 3, 2008
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They say that every man has his price. Lincoln once told a lobbyist to stop talking, not because he was disgusted listening to him, but because he was afraid that the lobbyist would meet his admittedly lofty price. Robert Kearns, Ph.D, appears to have no price at all. He desires only the satisfaction of Ford's publicly naming him the inventor of this windshield wiper. The suits at Ford, one of America's giant corporations, seemed quite interested in buying the product, but lo and behold, when they got the chance, they manufactured it—having stolen the process from its sole inventor. What follows is a progression of court cases and attempted settlements that would have Dr. Kearns martyr himself. Despite having six kids and a wife, he refused to accept Ford's settlements while the case was on the calendar, even though the money finally offered would have means the high life for all eight people.
Maybe because Kearns feels that the outer society considers him a wimp, he was determined to beat Ford. Money was obviously not an object since he turned down lucrative settlement proposals from the corporation. When Ford agreed to buy his invention, the professor-inventor rented a factory, since his basement was obviously not the place to manufacture the wipers. (Yes, he actually wants to build the wipers himself in his own corporation.) After the invention was stolen, he is advised by his lawyer (Alan Alda) to accept the company's $250,000 offer, which could be pushed up to $400,000 through negotiation. Negative: even though Lawson, the lawyer, bought a big bottle of Moet at a dinner conference with him and his wife, Phyllis (Lauren Graham). We're taken through family strife, as just about everyone wants the man to accept the offer. I think he should have done. After all, he gives up his job at the college, later going on unemployment comp and having a breakdown that lands him in a state mental hospital.
Because he stuck to his guns, his biography can be found in Wikipedia.org. This is a solid story but since director Marc Abraham never takes it a step above its limited scope of the inventor of a windshield wiper—make that the inventor of an improvement for the already used wiper—the tale does not take on the emotional release found in such larger-than-life stories as those by John Grisham. The tale is taken from John Seabrook's New Yorker magazine article.
Maybe because Kearns feels that the outer society considers him a wimp, he was determined to beat Ford. Money was obviously not an object since he turned down lucrative settlement proposals from the corporation. When Ford agreed to buy his invention, the professor-inventor rented a factory, since his basement was obviously not the place to manufacture the wipers. (Yes, he actually wants to build the wipers himself in his own corporation.) After the invention was stolen, he is advised by his lawyer (Alan Alda) to accept the company's $250,000 offer, which could be pushed up to $400,000 through negotiation. Negative: even though Lawson, the lawyer, bought a big bottle of Moet at a dinner conference with him and his wife, Phyllis (Lauren Graham). We're taken through family strife, as just about everyone wants the man to accept the offer. I think he should have done. After all, he gives up his job at the college, later going on unemployment comp and having a breakdown that lands him in a state mental hospital.
Because he stuck to his guns, his biography can be found in Wikipedia.org. This is a solid story but since director Marc Abraham never takes it a step above its limited scope of the inventor of a windshield wiper—make that the inventor of an improvement for the already used wiper—the tale does not take on the emotional release found in such larger-than-life stories as those by John Grisham. The tale is taken from John Seabrook's New Yorker magazine article.
Rated PG-13. 120 minutes. © 2008 by Harvey Karten Member: NY Film Critics Online
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