Nobel Son (Alan Rickman, Mary Steenburgen, Bryan Greenberg, Shawn Hatosy, Bill Pullman, Eliza Dushku, Danny DeVito) – This has been a month of odd movies. Nobel Son is from the connections that brought us the wonderful, quirky comedy Bottle Shock earlier this year. In fact, this movie was actually created before that one and probably only was released because of Bottle Shock’s success. The director, Randall Miller, directed and co-wrote Bottle Shock with his collaborator here, Jody Savin. Three actors from that film, Alan Rickman, Bill Pullman and Eliza Dushku, all appear in both films.
This one features devious, egocentric and narcissistic characters in a mystery about kidnapping, revenge, and greed. Brilliant, self-absorbed, anti-social and lecherous Professor Eli Michaelson, played convincingly by the versatile Rickman (Die Hard, Galaxy Quest and all of the Harry Potter films), is notified that he has won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, plunging him into further egomania and obnoxiousness. His son, Barkely, is struggling to finish his own Ph.D. in anthropology on the subject of cannibalism, and is mortified that his God-awful father will be even more insufferable. His wife, played by the suddenly omni-present Mary Steenburgen (Four Christmases), is a renowned forensic psychiatrist who is proud of her husband but also more than realizes his faults and excesses. On the eve of the trip to receive the Nobel Prize, Barkely (played by Omaha native Bryan Greenberg of Prime) meets and sleeps with a beautiful, if offbeat, artist (Eliza Dushku) named (get this) City Hall. This causes him to miss the plane to Stockholm. As he arrives home, hoping to catch his parents before they leave, he is brutally kidnapped by a guy who has been stalking the Michaelsons. The kidnapper appears to be a calculating and brilliant, if totally demented, lunatic named Thaddeus James (Shawn Hatosi of In and Out and Factory Girl).
When Thaddeus contacts the Nobel laureate, Michaelson figures it’s just a hoax perpetrated by his irresponsible son and he blows it off. But it soon becomes very real both to him and his desperate wife. Thaddeus wants the $2 million Nobel Prize money as ransom and forges an ingenious, if improbable, scheme to get it. The movie then becomes a first-rate thriller, complete with lots of twists and turns, betrayals, stalking and psychological turns. It even includes a detective (played by now-character actor Bill Pullman), a family friend and collaborator with Sarah, Steenburgen’s character.
The camera work is very modern and European in feel even though the film is from American director Randall Miller. This feels a little like the recent Rocknrolla and the Ocean’smovies, only without the fun. It’s very oddball for a fairly violent film but it definitely has an independent studio feel. The actors are all exceptional here. But the plot, while not complicated, is sometimes hard to follow given the technical effects. As I watched this film, I didn’t think I liked it much but once I slept on it, I realized it was really an engrossing story where the audience is engaged, then fooled, then surprised. This film has already left Des Moines so locals will have to wait for the video but our web users can still find it out there.