ŠUniversal Pictures
Greg Kinnear and Dermot
Mulroney in Flash of Genius.
by John P. McCarthy, Gazette
Movie Critic
Flash of Genius
Directed by: Marc Abraham
Running Time: 120 minutes
Principal Actors:
Greg Kinnear — Dr. Robert Kearns
Lauren Graham — Phyllis Kearns
Jake Abel — Dennis Kearns
Rated: PG-13
Grade: *** (out of 5)
I didn’t need much from Eagle
Eye, a paranoia-fueled techno thriller helmed by
Disturbia director D.J. Caruso. You’ve seen the
omnipresent trailer. You know the drill. Goateed
slacker Jerry Shaw (Shia LaBeouf) comes home one
night to find his dingy Chicago apartment
overflowing with high-tech, government-issued
weapons and cutting-edge, bomb-making materials.
FBI agents are pounding down his door. And a
mysterious female voice on the other end of
Shaw’s cell phone is urging him to run.
It’s a good setup. Eagle Eye executive producer
Steven Spielberg reportedly came up with the
film’s Big-Brother-is-eavesdropping idea; and
it’s the concept that ends up being the one
tangible thing we can grasp as the rest of the
picture rockets forward.
All I wanted was an explanation. Why was Jerry
being “activated,” as the pleasingly robotic
voice informed him? What’s so significant about
him? And why must single mom Rachel (Michelle
Monaghan) join in Jerry’s reindeer games?
Without a bankable answer, the rest is
insignificant, though learning how the
all-knowing authority manipulates technology to
pull Jerry and Rachel’s strings would be an
added bonus.
To their credit, the four screenwriters assigned
to Eagle Eye do cook up credible reasons for the
manic hoop-jumping, and they revolve around the
Kubrikian mythos of uber-intelligent government
computers overriding their human components in
the name of national security. Billy Bob
Thornton, phoning in the role of the seen-it-all
agent tracking LaBeouf’s movements, informs our
stereotypically innocent hero that he “picked a
bad time to be in the terrorism business.”
Ironically, Caruso’s taut and chaotic picture
should refute that statement at the box office.
The director’s execution keeps Eagle Eye moving
at a breakneck pace, doling out crucial
information along the way. Jerry’s recently
deceased twin brother was a book-smart Air Force
officer who might have grown restless with his
government grunt work and turned traitor.
Rachel’s son plays trumpet in a regional band
that’s en route to Washington to perform at the
annual State of the Union address. Some pieces
fit better than others, though the convoluted
plot of Eagle Eye should serve as crack cocaine
for conspiracy theorists.
Where Caruso goes horribly awry is in his action
sequences, which look like they were edited by a
meth addict on a Red Bull bender. Bombastic car
chases, frenetic foot races and a showdown
between Jerry and a remote-controlled jet in a
D.C. tunnel should be the film’s selling points.
Instead, I could barely keep my eyes on them.
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