User reviews

"Nobel Son" is one of the more entertaining movies of the year. It is an intriguing, quirky mix of quick-cutting, edgy direction; an outstanding cast; and some unusually literate text and sophisticated in-jokes for the who-is-doing-it (rather than who-done-it) genre.

Randall Miller is the MTV director, Miller and Jody Savin - each with a rather meager resume as a writer - are responsible for the winning script.

It's rare and fortuitous these days to walk into a theater to see a movie whose plot you know, and still be engaged and surprised. Such is the case here.

With deliberate exaggeration and advance apologies, I'd compare "Nobel Son" to "Sleuth" both for its tit-for-tat, now-you-see-it/now-you-don't continuous cliff-hanger nature, and the sense of amusement and fun even through some rather harrowing action. "Son" is *like* "Sleuth" in the true sense of that grossly abused word: having some of the same characteristics.

Only a great English stage actor such as Alan Rickman could make the silly cartoon figure of Eli Michaelson believable - and he does, becoming sort of likable in his unfettered loathsomeness. Michaelson is rotten to the core, antisocial beyond the worst case of Asperger's, plus a miserable human being - and the winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Mary Steenburgen plays his long-suffering wife, a character with a vaguely delineated past as a storied criminal investigator. Never too far from her is Bill Pullman, a detective, former colleague, current shoulder to lean on. Bryan Greenberg is the son, who - as you must know from all the ads and buzz - is held for ransom, apparently by Shawn Hatosy, a young actor who more than holds his own against the veterans in the cast. Danny Devito and Ted Danson show up, unnecessarily but - in the case of Danson - not irritatingly. Eliza Dushku has a star-turn debut as City Hall (that's the name), a looney poet, painter, and fornicator (their word, not mine).

There is something inexplicable about the cinematography: everybody in the cast looks like hell, sans makeup, sans Vaseline-smeared lens, sans everything. Pullman wins the race to Showing All the Pores, pasty-white, as unattractive as possible, but the others - including the women - are not far behind. A new trend? Makeup crew on strike? Who knows? For sure it's distracting, but "Son" is too good to allow this stupid quirk to interfere.

I love Alan Rickman in anything especially here where he plays a vain, selfish Nobel Laureate chemistry professor, Eli Michaelson. He plays it beautifully. If Alan would reconsider, he should be awarded and accept British knighthood but he has declined in the past. Mary Steenburgen is wonderful as the long suffering wife and mother. Eli's son, Barkley, learns some surprising facts and truths about his beloved father. Eli isn't so keen on giving up his money. There are plenty of memorable moments in the film like the car chase in the mall. Danny DeVito has a features role as their tenant. The cast is marvelous and the story is entertaining as well. It's nice to see Mary Steenburgen in a role worthy of her talent.

Nobel Son is a labyrinthine clockwork plot that involves one of the trickiest, slickest heists since The Italian Job or the first and second Ocean's films, a con game with more twists and hairpin turns than a script by David Mamet on coke, and a theme of desire for revenge that seethes even more after dubious narrative about-faces. The heist and con game film and the revenge story are a surefire mix for me. But I felt like I was trying to watch a great heist movie at a rave party. Whether techno music is good or bad, it renders you a slave to its beat. But I wanted to be a slave to the movie's beat. It's difficult to do both. Hence, the film is a more difficult viewing than it needs to be.

As a philandering chemistry professor who as a laboriously detestable character drives the story by winning the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Alan Rickman is the definite anchor for the ensemble cast of characters, all of whom are pawns in the script's scheme to weave the jazziest web the genre's seen in years. It could have easily achieved that goal were director Randall Miller contemplative enough to understand the effects of the audiovisual medium of film. There are not only sequences which require a much different kind of music, but there are several sequences which would be much more impacting to the tension of the unraveling story's pace without overscoring at all. Nearly every American genre film has sequences handled in the less effective way, but few of them soar into the depths of its extreme.

Rickman is the flagship but Mary Steenburgen is no less charming as his wife. A woman can be married to a man like Nobel Prize-winning chemist Eli Michaelson purely by being masochistic, deranged or in control of a deeply sophisticated feel for bitter sarcasm. But in spite of there being plenty of pleasant surprise in bit roles by Danny DeVito, Ernie Hudson and Bill Pullman as well, there isn't much room to talk about their performances, which are compartmentalized into roles that serve more as functions than characters to create a remorseless plot. Each character's occupation has much more to do with how they could come in handy to tie up loose ends than with who they are.

Nevertheless, this caper takes you for a turbulent excursion, because whether or not Randall Miller or his wife and co-writer Jody Savin have crafted a top-drawer entry into the con game genre, they remember that confidence tricks manipulate human weaknesses like selfishness, corruption and ego, as they are all things a con artist possesses himself, but also exploited are merits like honor, charity or a forthright belief in good faith on the part of the con artist.

The great movie reviewer, Gene Siskel, once said that the only way to evaluate a movie is to start by asking yourself what the creators of the movie intended ... what they intended here, and delivered, is a weird black comedy, filled with fine performances by exceptional actors, that never ever goes where you think it is going. Just when you expected something the movie goes another way. Is it perfect, of course not. Will you have a lot of fun if you just let it take you on its journey ... maybe not, but in that case you have no sense of humor at all, ... these actors clearly enjoyed playing these roles and delivering these lines ... they had fun too.

A scathing, dark comedy. Concerns an immoral scientist who wins the 'Nobel Prize', whilst his batty son gets himself kidnapped. Much more exciting than the title or suggests. A pretty satisfying movie with plenty of twist and turns in the plot.

I attended the World Premiere of Nobel Son at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival. That's Nobel as in Nobel Prize, and it takes the festival prize in my book. This winning film, from writer/director/producer/editor Randall Miller (did he make lunch too?), is on my list of Top 10 Picks from among the 30 I saw at this year's festival.

Professor Eli Michaelson (Alan Rickman) is about to win the Nobel Prize. His son Barkley (Bryan Greenberg) is a promising Ph.D. candidate wanting little to do with his father's pomposity. A scheme is hatched which is sure to pit father against son in a way to maximize their inherent rivalry. Let the madness and mayhem begin. In addition to Greenberg and Rickman, Nobel Son stars a troupe of talented veterans including Bill Pullman, Shawn Hatosy, Danny DeVito, Mary Steenburgen, Ted Danson, Ernie Hudson, and Eliza Dushku.

It's always hard to single anyone out in such an amazing ensemble cast. Greenberg, the titular son, is a worthy protagonist. The roller coaster ride on which he is taken is chilling, yet his upper crust background and bravado veneer cannot hide his childlike innocence. It is that vulnerability which sucks us in and compels us to look even when we would rather look away.

Shawn Hatosy is one of the most prolific and versatile young actors in the business, and he is frighteningly brilliant here. The intensity he brings to this role never lets up from start to finish. Nobody is better at psycho-scary. Many will be blown away by his performance. If he wasn't on your radar before he will be after you see Nobel Son.

Alan Rickman provides most of the comic relief in a film that is much more dark than comedic. A lesser actor could have turned in an over-the-top performance which might have tipped the scales in favor of the lighter side of this film. That would have spoiled the intensity of the violent escapades these young men partake in. But he manages to play the buffoon as only a legend can.

I was quite surprised by the look and feel of this film. It's much more stylized than one might expect. Digital effects and clever camera work help take what could have been a standard caper movie (a la Oceans 11) and turn it into a psychological thriller, emphasis on the thrills. It is such a fascinating story and an amazing script, and kudos to Randall Miller for being able to create a work which defies categorization. Gasps and laughs are traded back and forth, yet it manages to toe the line between comedy and tragedy without losing its focus.

If Kubrick inhaled nitrous oxide while making A Clockwork Orange, it might look something like Nobel Son. It will keep you on the edge of your seat, literally. Nobel Son is a breathtaking, refreshing escape from convention.

First off, I was sucked into the movie. I mention this, because so few movies grab my attention.

I think the acting was pretty good. Ever since Die Hard, I always liked the actor who played the father. The son was perfectly fine as well. I really liked City Hall, but the plot called for little of her. I think the mom could have shown a little more emotion, but otherwise solid. Really, I can't criticize the acting here.

The plot was not particularly innovative, but had a few interesting tweaks.

The camera work seemed pretty standard. I think the modern technique calls for a lot more camera movement, which I don't always care for.

Parts of the movie were a bit disturbing. That's a personal thing, and what I found disturbing, others may have found amusing.

My main complaint was that the movie seemed to shift a bit late in the movie. It felt like they ran out of time and had to cram a ton of stuff into the last 30 minutes. It wasn't that I was lost. I followed the story. But it was a bit unsatisfying. Had the final 30 minutes of the film been more solid, I think maybe I would have given it a 6 out of 10.

I was really looking forward to "Nobel Son". I was thinking, finally, an intelligent thriller that is going to focus on the characteristics of those found in the academic sciences. But I'm afraid that all I got was a jumbled mess that never really accomplished anything.

The son of a Nobel Prize-winning chemist is kidnapped for ransom. There are a lot of interesting ways to take this story. The main problem is, they take all of them. We have an opportunity to investigate what's really going on in the mind of the son, how has his father affected his life, why does the father live his life the way he does, who is really responsible for the kidnapping and why... . The ways to explore this story are endless, and instead of delving in whole-heartedly, all that came out was a jumbled mess that left me feeling frustrated with no invested knowledge in any part of the story. Another review said the problem was too many cooks. I second that, and will adapt the phrase from "too many cooks spoil the broth" to "too many writers spoil the story". Only two screenwriters were credited, but I'm willing to bet there were more with their hands in it.

The actors were all quite good, I'm sure. It's the characters that I'm more confused about. Whenever they presented a scene which echoed my experiences in the ivory tower of science, they usually followed that up with a scene that didn't make sense based on what we knew about the characters. Perhaps I was focusing too much on specifics, but I was continuously confused and frustrated by their characterization and story ideas. Too many writers, ideas, and lack of focus spoiled "Nobel Son".

Greetings again from the darkness. "Bottle Shock" director Randall Miller is back ... only "Nobel Son" was filmed first (you really have to love the Hollywood system). While "Bottle Shock" was a pretty straight forward re-telling of a wine industry break through, this film takes us on a dark ride with blazingly quick turns. It can be taken as a entertaining thriller/who-dunnit to who, or even as a psychological study on egotistical, domineering parents.

Much of the "Bottle Shock" crew is back ... Alan Rickman, Bill Pullman and Eliza Dushka. Add Mary Steenburgen, Shawn Hatosy (Outside Providence, The Cooler), Danny Devito and Ted Dansen, and you have an odd, but talented cast to deliver your odd, but entertaining film.

Alan Rickman plays the role he seems born to play ... arrogant self-diagnosed genius. His family and co-workers somehow tolerate him despite his blindness to their own talents. This is especially problematic once Rickman becomes a Nobel Prize winner. Without giving anything away, his son, played by Bryan Greenberg (Prime) is kidnapped and held for the $2 million Nobel prize money ... by a guy with ties to Rickman's character. That is the simple part. After that, the script flies through its twists and turns creating quite a mess of fun! Bill Pullman is the detective on the case and he draws from his voice pattern as the odd realtor in "You Kill Me", all while pining for Steenburgen ... who is a brilliant forensic expert in her own right. Danny Devito takes an odd turn as the Reformed OCD gardener who has a couple of memorable scenes. Eliza Duska (the bar owner in Bottle Shock) is quite memorable as the stunningly dark poet who captures Nobel Son's heart the evening before he is nabbed. Coincidence??? What I find most interesting about the script is that it could have focused on any number of story lines. Steenburgen, Rickman and Dushka all have characters that could be developed further. But it really works here to have the division and balance.

My only warning here is to be prepared for a Guy Ritchie-type experience. There are times of rapid-fire edits and crazy techno-mod music that will challenge your ability to follow along and keep up. I believe it just adds to the fun in this case.

Grad student Barkley Michaelson (Bryan Greenberg) is getting his PhD in cannibalism - not for actually eating his fellow man, mind you, but for studying those who do. This choice of topic doesn't sit very well with his dad, a hateful, arrogant college professor who's just been awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry and who wants his son to carry on his legacy after he's gone. Unfortunately, as Professor Eli Michaelson is over in Stockholm receiving his award, Barkley is back home in Pasadena being held for ransom by a crazed kidnapper. This is the setup for "Nobel Son," an Oedipal drama done in the form of a smart-alecky, wisecracking pitch dark comedy. Acting stalwarts Mary Steenburgen, Shawn Hatosy, Bill Pullman, Danny DeVito and Ted Danson round out the cast.

If there's one thing a filmmaker can't fake, it's "coolness" - yet that's the one thing writer/director Randall Miller keeps working so hard to achieve in "Nobel Son," a movie that too often comes across as a poor-man's version of Quentin Tarentino. Yet, despite that derivativeness, the movie's frenetic style - a mixture of razzle-dazzle camera and editing techniques, snarky black humor, and a pounding rock soundtrack - reveals that Miller has some real potential as a filmmaker. And a series of nifty plot twists in the final third go a long way towards mitigating any misgivings we may have harbored about the movie earlier on.

i was expecting this to actually be good because of a positive review by a critic who knows film and writes for my local paper. i'm surprised at just how bad it is. first off, the lighting leaves much to be desired. it's far too dark throughout the film. i'm sure this is on purpose, for some reason. second, the editing. lots of scenes in this film are shot like a music video, with quick editing and electronic music playing over it. it also doesn't cover up the flat direction that i believe is at the heart of this film. third, the music again. it's not just played in the quick-edit montages but throughout more static moments in the film. it does not help the film, in my opinion. also, i don't believe that it adds the sense of excitement that i think it is probably intended to. although with a film this uninvolving and flat i don't know that there's any music that could have helped. but the electronica seemed a bad choice.

also, there's little to no character development. i really didn't care what happened to any of the characters after a while, so i stopped watching. all in all, i found this film to be a sub-mediocre disappointment of an attempt at quirky black comedy. i give it a 2 because it has some good-to-decent acting despite the uninspired, flat direction.

I somehow managed to get a ticket to the premiere at Tribeca and it was worth the struggle. The film is a freight train that picks up speed and never stops going. Great performances from Alan Rickman, Mary Steenburgen, Bill Pullman, Danny DeVito, Shawn Hatosy, Bryan Greenberg and Eliza Dushku (so hot!). Writers Miller and Savin have us constantly off balance and Miller's direction is reminiscent of early Guy Ritchie (Lock Stock, Snatch). It's amazing that the same team that did the sweet and sensitive Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing & Charm School managed to pull off this wild breathless ride of a movie.

Can't wait to see it in theaters again when it comes out.

I love IMDb, and before i go see a movie i will log on and check the rating of the movie before i make the decision to see a movie. I will now be very very careful in the future. I have no idea how this movie is rated 8.5 on this site. This movie had so much potential to be good and it was a muddle piece of trash. They had the actors, a very good possible story of a kidnapping and backstabbing. But nothing angers me more than not showing a good transition to what the actors are doing/feeling in the movie. Then just throwing unnecessary points in the story that do nothing but confuse. I will admit i laughed here and there at the black comedy in this movie... there were some funny scenes. But there where parts of the movie that were so not needed and for a lack of a better word, retarded. I did see the Guy Ritchie comparisons and i liked what they were trying to do in this film, but it was executed terribly. Everything was so agonizingly cliché at the end and as the movie progressed throughout, it just got worse and worse.

It's not stupendous, but it's very good, light dramatic load, softened by doses of sarcastic love and ironies, plot twits at every turn, fun, engaging, captivating ... I loved it ...

This movie demonstrates everything that's wrong with Hollywood.

The overall story isn't that bad; it's the execution. This movie is filled to the brim with myriad plot holes, implausible situations and dialog, lame humor and laughable attempts at poignancy. And if that's not bad enough, it's also crammed with clichéd sound effects, unrelated trendy music and an array of un-called-for camera tricks and 'cool' editing. There's so much absurd stuff here, it would take me hundreds of pages to explain it all. Almost every aspect of this film is so implausible, that right from the start I could not suspend my disbelief.

It's as if the filmmakers decided to use every cool camera movement and editing that they ever saw and shoehorn it into this movie. That, coupled with the bad music choices, make the tone of this thing jump all over the place. It's disjointed and lacks a unified feel.

Why are the characters introduced with typing across the screen? This is a pathetic cliché that goes back to espionage type movies, so why is it here? Who's documenting the case? This movie doesn't know what it wants to be. It tries desperately to be Frank Capra, Alfred Hitchcock, Spike Lee and Quentin Tarantino all rolled into one and it just doesn't work. Barkley narrates at the beginning and end of this movie. If it is supposed to be seen through Barkley's eyes, then we've been cheaply duped, because a ton of stuff has been left out that would have been shown to the audience. You can't have a character narrate and then hide what he sees and hears from the audience. It's a cheap trick.

The tip of the iceberg of plot holes and implausibilities: What is the purpose of the gardener character? He could be removed and the story wouldn't change one bit. And why was he murdered? It seems absurd that they'd kill him just to vacate the apartment. These are supposed to be brilliant people; wasn't there a less illegal, less violent way to accomplish that? And what's with linking OCD with electric cars? The filmmakers often try to make a correlation between things that don't correlate. The Pat Benitar thing was a sad attempt at making a poignant link between the brothers. And how convenient was it that he left City Hall's apartment without his shoes. No one I know has ever been in that much of a hurry. He couldn't just carry them along with his shirt? Like so much of this script it's unbelievably contrived.

If there's been four thumbs taken in the last month wouldn't it be on the news? Wouldn't everybody know about it? And, if so, why is it crucial to send a thumb, to show you mean business, when everyone knows it's probably not the kidnap victim's thumb. And how did they get the Mini-Cooper in the apartment? Where did the brothers meet and plan it all? How did they know about each other? And Eli's dialog about molecules luminescing is over-the-top sophomoric.

Thaddeus spends a significant amount of time telling us how much of a horrible person his father is. Then, instantly, he wants his father to be proud of him and he wants to follow in his footsteps. What? He wants to steal other people's work and mess around with grad students and other people's wives? And Barkley seems like a dork even after we're shown that he's some kind of evil genius. I know a heck of a lot of Phds and not one of them ever played a Gameboy. And his mother is proud that he's an evil genius, because I guess, she's kind of evil too, even though she appears to have lived a successful and upstanding life for the past 50-odd years. Another cheap trick. OK, we get that people aren't all bad or all good. What a revelation. I think I got it when I was ten years old. And just in case we didn't get the message, Barkley actually tells us that during the opening credits.

Fortunately, City Hall lit one hundred candles near her bed on the roof, just in case, she brings home Barkley, virtually a stranger, many hours later. And wouldn't it be funny if Barkley woke up in the morning and stretched, but forgot that he was naked and outdoors in bright sunlight and somebody saw him. Hilarious. If I was twelve years old again. Who's ever heard of moo-shu? I've been eating moo-shi for longer than Barkley's been alive.

And we're spoon-fed embarrassing amounts of exposition: Thaddeus chronicling the gardener's history, Eli's history, etc. And just in case we missed the fact that City hall has done something twisted, don't worry, because right after she does it, a song is played that tells us that she's a twisted girl. And Barkley tells his whole personal situation to a clerk at a café. It's ridiculous. I've never seen such bad exposition. It's just lazy writing it really insults the intelligence of the viewer.

There's the poetry reading place, where predictably, everyone's poetry is ludicrous, except, of course, City Hall's. I mean, this gag's got whiskers on it.

And what's with the twisted logic of Sarah, "I hope it's Barkley's thumb. If it's somebody else's thumb then the kidnapper is a calculating psychopath." So, by that logic, if the kidnapper cuts off Barkley's thumb, then he's a psychopath, just not a calculating one. OK, I'll be on planet earth if anybody needs me.

You can't tell what's going happen because you're not given enough information. They've stacked the deck where you can't possibly figure it out and by the end there's so many ridiculous and implausible situations that you don't care. A mystery must include all the info needed to get it. Otherwise, it's cheap trick, which is what this is.

After the first fifteen minutes I though perhaps I had paid seven dollars to see an extended CSI or one of those Vegas casino shows that rely on innumerable zooms and ubercool techno music to convince you that something exciting is happening when it really isn't. The only movie with a mildly complex plot to use these techniques to its advantage was "Confidence" and even then it risked being corny at times. The acting really wasn't bad, rightly so with such a cast, but many times I couldn't even make out the substance of the performance because house-beats were blaring in my ears.

I was initially suspicious of a film that claimed to be a comedy and a thriller and a drama. Now, if your critical film viewing level peaks somewhere around The Fast and the Furious, then read no more. Clumsy plot twists, inappropriate editing and music selection won't phase your iron-trap of a mind. I am by nature a humble and optimistic movie-viewer, but at some point (involving a mall and a remote controlled vehicle) I experienced a mental collapse due to cognitive dissonance. The lingering themes of cannibalism, familial dysfunction, dark sides of human nature, etc were washed away by a wave of unbelievable ( as in un- believable) action sequences. I began to break out in a nervous sweat and wondered if I hadn't wandered into another theater in my delusional state.

Basically, I feel as if this film was written by several different people who never once contacted each other. There are some decent ideas in all three or four of the genres which it sought to present. But apparently no single one human being ever read the script before production. If you do see it for yourself, hopefully you can figure out why Ted Dansen and Danny DeVito were in it. I'm fairly confident their performances had no impact whatsoever on the film.

It's edgy, fast-paced, super hip, has a "bangin" electronica soundtrack (Oakenfold/Crystal Method etc) all the while amazingly witty and funny.

It's a great combination, being one part psychological thriller, one part comedy. Combining lighthearted romp with details of chemistry and forensics, cannibalism,and kidnapping.... plus such a great cast – great to see actress Mary Steenburgen with such a pivotal role, and Danny Devito is great as the special neighbor. Great cast. Everyone working together so swimmingly, too.

A list cast, college kids… will appeal to younger AND older viewers. Not a frat house romp. There is a tendency to assume that a combination of college and comedy means necessarily puerile, but there is nothing low-brow going on in this film. Saw a trailer first that didn't come anywhere near telling the story – that trailer made it all about sex… and the film is not about sex. It's good, that's all I can say. We laughed ourselves sick! This film is dope.

Rickman's character is deliciously flawed and OMG I've had profs like him! His family are altogether typical intelligentsia, and his son... well... you've known a guy like him too.. there's always someone like him in school.

What's great is how all the ends tie up neatly, without a cliché' reveal. And did I mention the killer soundtrack? Nothing like a perfect soundtrack to carry one through all the action.

DO NOT miss this film. It was SO good.

This wasn't all bad, but it didn't seem to know where it was going. First of all the lousy music. This was intrusive, too loud and in places even drowned out the dialogue. I found myself reaching for the remote to lower it every time the nutter came on. He was accompanied by crazy music to let us know he was crazy. Then you had to turn the sound up again to catch the next bit of dialogue. The music was terrible, and sounded as if it was added at the last minute to change the direction of the movie in post edit. Then I realised what had happened. The original comedy movie had been made into a 'dark comedy' after shooting was over. The cannibalism, mutilation, kidnapping, murders and beatings were a little too much for the review audiences, so it had to become a thriller. The Woody Allen style poetry group and the presence of so many comedy actors, Rickman, Danson, Steenburgen, De Vito surely meant that this began as a comedy, but someone (one of the 5 producers ? ) decided to change tack. Was De Vito originally meant to be more enhanced role and he was cut down to practically a cameo ? Why was Danson given only a few cutting lines as the University Dean ? Given Benny Hill style music, or even a decent rock score, but hey they have to be paid for, the whole film would have been better. Why did this go straight to DVD here in the UK, and then be given away in a newspaper ? I think a fine cast was let down here by a too many cooks effect and a corporate writing and editing debacle.

Movies today, are good. I enjoy what they have become, but the art has slowly dripped out of films with a few exceptions. This is definitely one of them. I was very happy with my choice to see this one, having not heard of it I went in not knowing what to expect. I felt that way until the closing credits. It was a fantastic movie of ups and downs and twists and turns, that kept me guessing. The superb acting of the veterans like Alan Rickman, Mary Steenburgen, Danny DeVito, and Bill Pullman. Eliza Dushku continues to excite her audience and prove herself on the screen. Bryan Greenberg and Shawn Hatosy have done great jobs recently and I look forward to seeing them more often. I hope Randall Miller continues his run of good movies after Bottle Shock and Nobel Son, I'm left wanting more!