Movie Reviews by Michael Phillips

Noble Son Movie Review & Trailer

A ripe premise left out in the sun too long, co-writer and director Randall Miller's "Nobel Son" stars Alan Rickman as a snotty university chemistry professor married to a forensic psychiatrist, played by Mary Steenburgen.

Their son (Bryan Greenberg) spends his academic life sitting around coffeehouses playing his Game Boy and mulling his thesis on cannibalism.

Dad wins the Nobel Prize in chemistry, but rather than accompanying his folks to Stockholm, son Barkley has the bad manners to get kidnapped by a sociopath with a taste for blood (Shawn Hatosy) and a plan to extort the Nobel Prize winner for $2 million in ransom money.

Rickman can play an imperious rotter in his sleep.

As in the other recent Miller film, "Bottle Shock" (shot after this one, but released before), Rickman tones up the flabby material. His sneer is, of course, incomparable. Despite a dull performance from Greenberg, the actors aren't the problem with this cockamamie mash-up of revenge thriller and black comedy. Miller, who co-wrote the script with his wife, Jody Savin, and who also edited the footage like a man with serious, perpetual distractions, never settles on a style or an effective clash of tones.

"Nobel Son" was shot on 35 mm film, but the digital color timing gives everything a grim bluish pall. The results look like the cruddiest digital video possible.

I enjoyed Eliza Dushku's mad poetess, probably for the wrong reasons, but with a project this meager, you take your artful sneers and scenic diversions where you can get them.

"Noble Son" - 1.5 Stars

MPAA rating: R (for some violent gruesome images, language and sexuality).

Running time: 1:50.

Starring: Alan Rickman (Eli Michaelson); Bryan Greenberg (Barkley Michaelson); Shawn Hatosy (Thaddeus James); Mary Steenburgen (Sarah Michaelson); Bill Pullman (Max Mariner); Eliza Dushku (City Hall); Danny DeVito (George Gastner).

Directed and edited by Randall Miller; written and produced by Jody Savin and Randall Miller; photographed by Michael J. Ozier; music by Paul Oakenfold and Mark Adler; production design by Craig Stearns. A Freestyle Releasing release.

"Noble Son" Movie Trailer

 

About the Movie "Noble Son"

"Nobel Son" is a black comedy movie about a dysfunctional family dealing with the kidnapping of their son for ransom following the father's winning of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The film features Alan Rickman as the prize-winning professor and Mary Steenburgen as his wife, with Bryan Greenberg as their kidnapped son.

On the eve of Barkley Michaelson's father receiving the Nobel Prize, Barkley is kidnapped and the requested ransom is the $2,000,000 in Nobel Prize money. When his father refuses to pay it starts a venomous tale of familial dysfunction, lust, betrayal and ultimately revenge.

Eli Michaelson (Alan Rickman), a self-involved chemistry professor, learns he has been awarded the Nobel Prize. After verbally abusing his wife, son, colleagues, and nominal girlfriend, he heads off to Sweden with his wife, Sarah (Mary Steenburgen), to collect his award. His son, Barkley (Bryan Greenberg), misses the flight.

Barkley Michaelson has chosen to study not chemistry but anthropology, and this perceived failure triggers constant torrents of abuse from his father. His missing the flight, though, is the apparently innocent result of having been kidnapped by the deranged Thaddeus James (Shawn Hatosy), who claims to be Eli Michaelson's son by the wife of a former colleague. Thaddeus successfully obtains a ransom of $2 million, which he then splits with Barkley who, it appears, has orchestrated the kidnapping to obtain money from his father.

Shortly after Barkley's release, Thaddeus rents a garage apartment from the Michaelsons and begins to charm Eli with his knowledge of chemistry. Barkley undertakes a campaign of psychological terror aimed at Thaddeus and his girlfriend, performance artist City Hall (Dushku). This ultimately results in the death of Thaddeus and commitment to a mental hospital for City.

Meanwhile, Barkley kidnaps Eli and threatens to expose the scientific fraud that led to Eli receiving a Nobel Prize that he did not deserve. Eli's long-suffering wife, Sarah, demands a divorce while praising her son for his devious behavior.

In the final scenes, Sarah, Barkley, and Sarah's police detective boyfriend, Max Mariner (Pullman) are seen on a tropical beach. Mariner appears to have been in the dark through most of the movie, but has figured out towards the end that he wants to be with Sarah and can live with the theft of $2 million from her scoundrel husband. Eli is seen in his classroom unrepentantly flirting with another student. He has lost his wife, son, and the money, but he still has his Nobel Prize and the professor position.

"Noble Son" Movie Review - "Noble Son" Stars Alan Rickman, Bryan Greenberg, Mary Steenburgen

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