Review: Flash of Genuis

I probably should have seen something other than Flash of Genius at the festival, not because it's good or bad, but because if it's any good, it will surely be showing in major theatres, and if not, why on earth would I want to see it? Good notes for next year's selection process, I suppose.

Anyway, this film stars Greg Kinnear as Bob Kearns, the man who invented the intermittent windshield wiper. Sounds like an exciting movie, doesn't it? Well, though there is some minor talk of resistors and capacitors for those of you who get excited about that sort of thing, but this movie is a human story of a man going it alone against the corporate giant Ford, back when Ford was all the rage.

Kearns dropped his attorney Gregory Lawson, played by Alan Alda, when Lawson tried to persuade him to take a cash settlement in the range of $300,000. No, for him, it wasn't about the money, but it was about what was right. And what was right was Ford saying "uncle" after stealing his invention. Kearns represented himself in court, and I'll let you predict what that outcome was.

Regardless of the outcome, the case cost Kearns a lot, including his job as a university professor, 12 years of his life studying patent law & filing motions, papers,etc., but most of all his wife (Lauren Graham). There is nothing earth shattering about this movie, but it's a good story worth watching if it happens to be raining some weekend, particularly if it's a light rain or perhaps a mist. My imdb rating: 7/10.