"Stephen Holden of "The New York Times" called the film "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"", but thought it "has the tone and texture of a well-made but forgettable television movie".He added, ""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".