Flash of Genius

The title of Marc Abrahams’s first feature refers to the “eureka” moment that the US patent people insist must occur if an inventor is to prove that an idea is his own. Bob Kearns (a humble and seedy Greg Kinnear), an engineering professor at a small college, gets his inspiration while driving the wife and their six kids back home from church during a rainstorm. His brainstorm, the intermittent windshield wiper, proved a gold mine — for the Ford Motor Company. As Francis Coppola pointed out in Tucker, little guys with big dreams always get squashed by the corporations. Kearns, however, persevered for years trying to beat the system, and it all ends in an extended courtroom drama that’s less exciting than you might expect. Abrahams, alas, shows no flashes of his own, grinding out an earnest homily the moral of which, it would seem, is not to trust a business partner if he’s played by Dermot Mulroney. 119 minutes | Boston Common + Fenway + Kendall Square + West Newton + Suburbs