Is it a thriller? Is it a heist movie? Is it a comedy?
Nobel Son (2008)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:20
Fresh:5
Rotten:15
Average Rating:4.2/10
Consensus: Despite the best efforts of a strong cast, Nobel Son is over-plotted and self-consciously odd.
Rated: R [See Full Rating] for some violent gruesome images, language and sexuality.
Runtime: 1 hr 51 mins
Genre: Dramas
Theatrical Release:Dec 5, 2008 Wide
Box Office: $333,912
Synopsis: Randall Miller's NOBEL SON is an ultra-stylized comic thriller with so many twists it could make David Mamet blush. The film opens at the midway point for a quick jolt of violence, then backs up... Randall Miller's NOBEL SON is an ultra-stylized comic thriller with so many twists it could make David Mamet blush. The film opens at the midway point for a quick jolt of violence, then backs up and tells the story from the very beginning. Barkley Michaelsen (Bryan Greenberg) is a college student living under the shadow of his monstrous, arrogant father, Eli (Alan Rickman), who has just been awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry. When not being a genius, Eli reveals himself to be a truly miserable man who cheats on his beautiful wife, Sarah (Mary Steenburgen). As for Barkley, on the night that he goes home with a sultry poet named City Hall (Eliza Dushku), his life takes an unexpected turn for the dangerous. The arrival of a mysterious figure named Thaddeus James (Shawn Hatosy) confirms his troubled situation. At this point, the lies, double crosses, and backstabs begin to multiply at an alarming rate. NOBEL SON comes off like a glossy, revved-up hybrid between Quentin Tarantino and torture porn. Miller and Jody Savin fill their script with as many comic elements as they do noir-esque twists and moments of grotesque violence. Helping to bring things to fuller life is the impressive cast--most notably Hatosy, who lends a welcome measure of depth to a character that could have easily become a tired cliche. NOBEL SON is for those viewers who like a healthy dose of gore and humor with their twisting narratives. [More]
Starring: Alan Rickman, Bryan Greenberg, Shawn Hatosy, Mary Steenburgen
Starring: Alan Rickman, Bryan Greenberg, Shawn Hatosy, Mary Steenburgen, Bill Pullman, Ted Danson, Ernie Hudson, Lindy Booth, Tracey Walter, Eliza Dushku, Danny DeVito
Director: Randall Miller
Director: Randall Miller
Screenwriter: Jody Savin, Randall Miller
Producer: Jody Savin, Randall Miller
Composer: Paul Oakenfold, Mark Adler
Studio: Freestyle Releasing
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Reviews for Nobel Son
I had high hopes for Nobel Son at the halfway point, but it ultimately really completely collapses under the weight of its clever twists.
The plot twists are mostly predicated on the characters' improbably shifting loyalties, the sort of thing you can get away with only when the people in your movie are drained of all compassion.
It's one of those films stuffed with odd characters in overblown situations. Unfortunately, you don't care about any of them.
Even if you can summon some admiration for Nobel Son's editing or snippets of clever dialogue, the movie is so relentlessly self-congratulatory, you can't help becoming thoroughly sick of it.
Only when Nobel Son stops trying so hard does it have any appeal at all.
Like the worst of holiday quarrels, it's much more irritating than interesting, and by the end of it you'll be filled with as much seasonal cheer as Ebenezer Scrooge.
Except for a mildly engaging heist scene in the middle of the movie, the story never gets within a mile of the Quentin Tarantino classics it tries to evoke.
A snarky, blackly comic crime drama, the whole thing unfolds like the feverish Welsh Rarebit dream of Guy Ritchie's chauffeur.
Fans of Rickman will appreciate the actor's sneering mix of buffoonery and misanthropy, Steenburgen gives another of her playfully ironic turns, and Miller's direction allows for few, if any, lulls.
Nobel Son is a dreary little thriller that irritates more than it thrills.
It's all wildly implausible and occasionally fun, but it could be so much better if director Randall Miller had thrown in a little more character development and excised a half-dozen crazy plot twists.
Not flagrant enough to be vile, not original enough to be any good, Nobel Son does offer a rare opportunity to see Alan Rickman at his worst.
An aggressively noisy exercise in style over substance about nasty people doing nasty things to one another in (sigh) Southern California.
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.
The plot by itself could have become tiresome; no audience enjoys spending all evening walking into stone walls. But the acting is another matter.
Although sometimes too self-consciously odd for its own good, the film is at times rollicking good fun, with Alan Rickman having a ball offending everyone within earshot as the brilliant, self-centered Eli Michaelson.
The director, Randall Miller, appears to be trying to cross a bad Elmore Leonard thriller with a bad indie-festival family-angst comedy.
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