Nobel Son(2008)- User Reviews

Small market movies are usually much better than the large budget Hollywood crap that is shoved at us every week. Such is not the case with "Nobel Son" it does come across nice but is a little to predictable for me. Professor Eli Michaelson (Alan Rickman) is about to win the Nobel Prize. He is a family man who pays little attention to his family. He's egotistical, eccentric, uncaring and obnoxious, and has been handing out higher grades in exchange for sex with his young female students. His son Barkley (Bryan Greenberg) is struggling with his PhD thesis on cannibalism. He also struggles with an awkward romance with City Hall (Eliza Dushku), a morbid poet and artist with her own bountiful measure of oddness. Eli's wife Sarah (Mary Steenburgen) is a renowned forensic psychiatrist who is fancied by Max Mariner (Bill Pullman), a somewhat crafty detective. On the morning of the family's trip to Sweden to attend the Nobel Prize party, Barkley is kidnapped and held for a $2 million ransom; the money awarded to Eli. From here, backstabbing, jealousy, lust and greed collide in nonstop twists and turns, proving that once again nothing is what it seems. Every one of these characters in Nobel Son are devious, shrewd, freakish, obsessive compulsive or morally flawed and is hard to side with either of them. Enter Thaddeus James (Shawn Hatosy) who may or may not be Eli's illegitimate child, whose mother's husband is whom Eli's Nobel Prize winning work was stolen from, he decides to kidnap Eli's true son for the two million dollar purse. When some highly coincidental series of events and relationships allow for it all to come together. The kidnapped son ends up proving to his assailant that he'd love to get back at his father any way he can, and the two hatch an elaborate plan, involving the full reconstruction of a car within two hours, to steal the money clean and not let anyone get hurt, if you don't count an innocent man without a thumb. The hatred felt among the characters for every one involved is intense, each one has a secret agenda and tries to out do the other. City Hall has a secret past where she met Thaddeus, Sarah and Max may or may not be involved, and Barkley, well he has one issue on his mind through out the movie. The plot twists and turns like a roller coaster ride, up and down over and under, by the time the plot twist is revealed no one cared. Its hard to care about a man who is loath to care about himself. The kidnapping plot comes off and Barkley is returned but this is where the story takes a dive, everyone turns on every one else, secrets are revealed like they don't matter. The end is obvious and can be seen coming along time before its revealed. This movie has nothing new except the dizzying pace in which it is played. I give Nobel Son a 2 and on my avoidance scale a 2 as well, this movie can wait to be seen on cable.