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List Price: $19.98 | | Label: Universal Studios
Salesrank: 5411
Released: February 17, 2009 |
| Our Price: $13.07 |
| Used Price: $2.45 |
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Based on the true story of college professor and part-time inventor Robert Kearns’ (Greg Kinnear) long battle with the U.S. automobile industry, Flash of Genius tells the tale of one man whose fight to receive recognition for his ingenuity at any price. This determined engineer refused to be silenced, and he took on the corporate titans in a battle that nobody thought he could win. When Bob invents a device that would eventually be used by every car in the world, the Kearns think they have struck gold. But their aspirations are dashed after the auto giants who embraced Bob’s creation unceremoniously shunned the man who invented it. While refusing to compromise his dignity, this everyday David will try the unthinkable: to bring Goliath to his knees.
Description of Flash of Genius:
In the early-1990s, Greg Kinnear was just another amiable talk show host. After As Good As It Gets, however, Kinnear confirmed he could act. If Flash of Genius isn't as harrowing as the Bob Crane biopic Auto-Focus, Kinnear digs just as deep to play a man possessed, in this case taking on Bob Kearns, a Detroit physics professor who invented the intermittent windshield wiper. Supported by his wife (Lauren Graham) and best friend (Dermot Mulroney, making the most of an underwritten part), Kearns aims to align himself with a Motor City auto maker to manufacture his device. Ford expresses interest, so Kearns secures a warehouse, but it all falls apart when they abruptly pull the plug. Then he finds out that they've added automatic wipers to their latest line. Though he patented his invention, the company denies they're using his blueprint, so Kearns takes them to court, a process that drags on for three decades. Meanwhile, his support system starts to collapse as Kearns loses interest in everything except the credit he feels he deserves. If the film succumbs to some of the pitfalls of the genre, i.e. the win-lose-win structure, producer-turned-director Marc Abraham never paint Kearns as too much of a hero. Through the inventor's brilliance, the world's streets are safer, but his tenacity also drove away some of those he held most dear. Hence, Flash of Genius serves as an inspirational story, a cautionary tale, and the perfect opportunity for Kinnear to make a potentially off-putting character sympathetic. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
Stills from Flash of Genius (Click for larger image)
Flash of Genius Reviews:
Flash Of Genius is Pure Genius 
2009-12-01 - Flash Of Genius is a great movie. Perhaps overlooked in the theatres. Now you can get to see it in the comfort of home.
A serious movie that portrays how our business culture acts in situations when an unsuspecting and honest inventor and teacher creates something that has the potential to change automotive history and driving in a safer way for every automobile owner.
The intermittent windshield wiper may seem insignificant to each of us however it was created by a thoughtful inventor who when they presented the idea to corporate automotive giants they are surprised to learn that they have stolen his idea without his permission and then push him aside in the process.
A long and ardous battle ensues as Dr. Robert Kearns figures out how to defend himself from the unrelenting money, power and corporate lawyers whom he must overcome.
A great movie that portrays hope and perserverance as attributes for the little guy who can and does win in the face of unsurmountable odds!
A great movie!!
The Windshield Wipper Irony
2009-11-28 - I loved this movie, Greg Kinnear did a fabulous job. You really agonized over this invention being stolen. But there is some real irony with this real life story that starts with Florence Lawrence who was the world's first movie star and she was also the very first actor to ever receive a movie credit--the movie was "The Broken Oath" release November 15, 1910.
Here is a very interesting and ironic excerpt from [...] "According to Kelly R. Brown's 1999 biography, Florence Lawrence, the Biograph Girl, she was an avid automobile driver at a time when very few people actually owned cars. In 1914 she invented the first turn signal, which she called an 'auto signaling arm.' The arm attached to the back fender and when a driver pressed a button, it electrically raised or lowered, with a sign attached indicating the direction of the intended turn. Her brake signal worked on the same principle that an arm with a sign reading `stop' rose up whenever the driver pressed the brake pedal. This was the essential concept behind today's brake lights.
But unlucky Lawrence didn't properly patent her inventions and soon other, more refined versions were invented and brought to market. With her mother, however, she did patent a system of electrical windshield wipers in 1917, but it made no money. By the time the first electrical turn signals became standard equipment on the 1939 Buick, her contributions were long forgotten and she was dead."
I find it amazingly ironic that the windshield wiper plagued not only Robert Kearns, the intermittent wiper inventor, but the original wiper inventor as well, Florence Lawrence.
Knock 'em out Kearns
2009-11-19 - This was one of the better movies i watched this year. I really enjoyed Kearns one man fight to show that a corporate giant stole his idea. It wasn't about the money, just wanted ford to own up to stealing his invention. Not sure if the real life story was played out this way but this is a keeper.
Being genius is costly 
2009-11-18 - "Flash of Genius" movie was made after article about inventor Bob Kearns published in the New Yorker magazine. Last time I read compelling personal story, it was about the "Orchid Thief". This time around the story was just as good. Greg Kinnear's performance in the film is amazing.
It is when someone sees movies like this one, about the middle-class man with one great idea who gets cheated by the major corporation that we all get thinking that perhaps big corporations deserve to suffer after decades of abusing their power against a regular man. It is a story of a man who would not settle for anything less than acknowledgement of his due credit ofr the intermittent windshield wiper idea he came up with. His hard won battle came at the steep price.
This is a story about a man who had principle, drive and compulsive desire for recognition of the best invention of his life. Film drags at times, but actors provide story that is both inspirational and cautionary.
Hard To Watch, But Worth The Effort
2009-11-03 - We never really wonder where all the little niceties of life come from - the three way light bulb, the tv remote, the automatic thermostat, or the ice maker, just to name a few. These devices make our days easier, with little to no fanfare. We are so used to such conveniences that we never see them, and we certainly never think about them. This film, FLASH OF GENIUS, is the story of the man who invented one such convenience device, the intermittent windshield wiper. Do you even remember a time before we had them? I don't; I mean, not really. Oh, I do know that there were invented in my lifetime, but I certainly don't think about them or really remember when they came into being. But now, I expect every car on the road to have them.
The intermittent windshield wiper was invented by Robert Kearns, a college professor and regular family man with a lovely wife and a passel of kids. FLASH OF GENIUS is his story. His life is completely changed when he invents the mechanism that allows drivers to control the interval between the "blinking" of the blades on a windshield wiper. Dr. Kearns patents his invention and takes it to the Ford Motor Company. Ford is VERY interested (Bob Kearns has done what all the Ford engineers have failed to do) but in the end, they refuse to give him a contract. When Dr. Kearns later learns that Ford has installed the intermittent wipers on their cars, he takes the Ford Motor Company to court for patent infringement, but finds that he is David to their Goliath. They drag out his case nearly 30 years. Bob ends up in a psychiatric hospital, with no family, few friends, and nothing to show for his ingenuity. In the end, Bob does triumph. But was it worth the horrible price?
As I said earlier, FLASH OF GENIUS is a very difficult movie to watch. You ache for this man, as Ford beats him down over and over again. Their treatment of him is detestable and painful to watch as he loses more and more of his life, and it is a testament to Robert Kearns' internal strength and perseverance that he keeps trying.
Greg Kinnear gives the performance of a lifetime as Robert Kearns. Kinnear makes this bumbling, awkward, naïve professor sympathetic and real. The rest of the supporting cast does a fine job, but this is Kinnear's movie. Even a superbly acted appearance by Alan Alda does nothing to lessen the focus on Kinnear's character.
FLASH OF GENIUS unfolds quite slowly, quietly reeling the viewer in. You become emotionally invested in the story. I can't say I "enjoyed" this film, but I certainly found it worth watching. I learned a thing or two, which is one of the main reasons, IMHO, to watch a movie in the first place. And I must say that I will never look at my windshield wipers, the Ford Motor Company, or unsung inventors the same way ever again. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
