Based on the true story of college professor and part-time inventor Robert Kearns' long battle with the U.S. automobile industry, a tale of one man whose fight to receive recognition for his ingenuity would come at a heavy price. But this determined engineer refused to be silenced, and he took on the corporate titans in a battle that nobody thought he could win. The Kearns were a typical 1960s Detroit family, trying to live their version of the American Dream. Local university professor Bob married teacher Phyllis and, by their mid-thirties, had six kids who brought them a hectic but satisfying Midwestern existence. 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. Ignored, threatened and then buried in years of litigation, Bob is haunted by what was done to his family and their future. He becomes a man obsessed with justice and the conviction that his life's work -- or for that matter, anyone's work -- be acknowledged by those who stood to benefit. And while paying the toll for refusing to compromise his dignity, this everyday David will try the unthinkable: to bring Goliath to his knees. - skip ad - Genres: Drama, Adaptation and Biopic Running Time: 2 hrs. Release Date: October 3rd, 2008 (wide) MPAA Rating: PG-13 for brief strong language. Distributor: Universal Pictures Cast And Credits Starring: Greg Kinnear, Lauren Graham, Jake Abel, Bill Smitrovich, Aaron Abrams Directed by: Marc Abraham Produced by: Jonathan Glickman, J. Miles Dale, Eric Newman

Flash of Genius” is a doggedly workmanlike variation of an old story: the lone crusader doing battle with the big bad establishment. Picture Jimmy Stewart as a passionately outraged everyman speaking truth to power, then take away the passion.

What gives the movie a frisson of freshness is that the little guy is based on an actual person, Dr. Robert W. Kearns (Greg Kinnear), an electrical engineer and college professor who in the late 1960s invented and patented the intermittent windshield wiper. After he presented his invention to the major Detroit automakers, Ford demanded a sample unit, then adopted his system without paying him or giving him credit. He ultimately sued Ford and then Chrysler for patent infringement.

Like the invention at the heart of the story, “Flash of Genius” is a meticulously constructed mechanism, one that wants to convey the same mixture of idealism, obsession and paranoia found in whistle-blower movies like “Silkwood” and “The Insider.” Adapted from a 1993 New Yorker article by John Seabrook and directed by Marc Abraham from a screenplay by Philip Railsback, it has the tone and texture of a well-made but forgettable television movie.

At least in its climactic courtroom scenes “Flash of Genius” evenhandedly lays out the opposing arguments of Ford and Kearns, who acts as his own defense lawyer. It also does an exemplary job of articulating the legal issues, with an assist from Charles Dickens’s “Tale of Two Cities,” which is used to illustrate an important point.

The scenes of Kearns’s domestic life with his wife, Phyllis (Lauren Graham), a schoolteacher, and their six children convey the family’s messy, unglamorous ’60s existence. During his final push for a trial by jury, after he is offered generous settlements but no credit for his invention, several of his children work as his assistants.

The visibly aging children, played by different actors as they grow older, are the movie’s principal indicators of how much time has passed. Mr. Kinnear, appearing baggy-eyed and anxious throughout the film, and Ms. Graham, looking drably attractive, barely change. The movie doesn’t specify the year or even the decade in which events are taking place except by pop music cues and changing car models. “Flash of Genius” would have been more gripping had it pinpointed events and conveyed the harrowing physical, emotional and financial cost of Kearns’s quest.

It is encouraging to see Mr. Kinnear, who was so perfectly cast as a screwball rake in “Ghost Town,” undertaking more serious adult roles in which he doesn’t play cute or bratty. But he is no Jimmy Stewart. You never have the feeling that he represents a cause larger than his character’s own personal grievance. Mr. Kinnear is a small-scale screen presence comfortable projecting worry, frustration and even nagging obsession; moral heroism is beyond him.

Kearns is first seen being escorted by Maryland state police off a Greyhound bus headed for Washington, where he intends to plead his case. Taken to a mental hospital, he is treated for a nervous breakdown and released as soon as his doctor decides his obsession has subsided.

The story backtracks to his days in his basement tinkering on the invention, which he and his skittish business partner, Gil (Dermot Mulroney), hope will make them rich. Those dreams are dashed when Ford suddenly and suspiciously loses interest. The final moment of truth arrives when he crashes a Ford dealers convention at which the Mustang is unveiled with the intermittent wiper as a prominent selling point. From then on his pursuit of recognition for an invention he calls his Mona Lisa is relentless.

But it all feels like déjà vu. If we must have stories about heroic little guys going after bullies, maybe it’s time for a true story of a shareholder in a bankrupt investment company suing its filthy rich chief executive for his golden parachute and winning.
 
To be a true story, of course, it would have to happen. “Flash of Genius” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). It has some strong language.