Give the guy a Nobel. He just made an interesting movie

In Nobel Son, Barkley Michaelson (Brian Greenberg) is in a deep life rut. He's struggling to finish his PhD thesis when his father, the learned Eli Michaelson (Alan Rickman), wins the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Barkley and his mother, Sarah (Mary Steenburgen), a renowned forensic psychiatrist, now have the ill-fortune of living with a man-eating monster whose philandering ways have gotten less and less discrete. As if Barkley's world is not bad enough, on the eve of his father receiving the Nobel, Barkley is kidnapped and the requested ransom is the $2,000,000 in Nobel prize money. Needless to say, Eli refuses to pay it and so starts a venomous tale of familial dysfunction, lust, betrayal and ultimately revenge that proves that payback is a bitch. In the words of Michel De Montaigne, the 16th century philosopher: "There is more barbarity in eating a man alive than in eating him dead."

Professor Eli Michaelson (Rickman) has just been awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry. The endowment transforms the prof's already insufferable narcissism into outright arrogance. For the rest of Michaelson clan, the Swedish coronation only adds insult to injury. Helmer Miller and co-writer/wife Jody Savin, whose work has tilted toward the sweet and sentimental, here throw themselves into twisted villainy with gusto. Even the good characters, like Mary Steenburgen's Sarah, Rickman's long-suffering wife by night and a forensic pathologist by day, harbor unexpected depths of deviousness. Michaelson's callow son Barkley (Bryan Greenberg), sole offspring and bitter disappointment, is finishing up his thesis on cannibalism and trying to subsist on a measly paternal stipend of $35 a week. After a date with a weirdo poetess named City Hall (the irresistibly sexy Eliza Dushku), he is kidnapped. Enter Thaddeus James (Shawn Hatosy), abductor, mechanical genius and advanced chemistry autodidact, claiming to be Barkley's illegitimate half-brother (What?). Thaddeus alternately threatens and convinces Barkley into joining him in his multimillion-dollar kidnap/extortion/revenge plot against their father. It seems that Eli's womanizing has gotten the best of him when back in 1984 he slept with his so-called best friends wife, thus producing Thaddeus. The plan goes on without a hitch until Thaddeus decides that he wants more. He wants Barkley's life. First he starts by taking his girl, then he kills neurotic renter of the garage apartment, Gastner (Danny DeVito), who just happens to be recovering from his Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, to move in with the family. From there, Barkley talks to the only person who has always had his back, dear ol' mom.

With more story twists than a designer pretzel -- including an anonymous amputated thumb and a gratuitous corpse in a bathtub -- the adrenalin-fueled pic thankfully slows to a halt after only a few to many loop-de-loops. This is one to make you think. You'll go "Huh?", "What?", "Ah, Okay...", but you're meant to. It's got mystery and action and comedy as well. Alan Rickman is at his best here as the professor who's head gets too big when he wins the coveted Nobel Prize for Chemistry....Oh wait, he was a pompous ass before he got the award as too. LOL The cast works well together, Hatosy as the mischievous half brother that comes out of nowhere, Steenburgen as the devoted mother who loves her son, and Dushku as the wierdo poet/artist who has quite a few problems of her own. Even the supporting cast feels right at home in this crazy world. DeVito is downright funny as the neighbor that not too long ago left the nut house for treatments of OCD. Here he tries to live day to day without flipping out and he plays the character well. We also have Bill Pullman who plays the Detective/Family friend who without a doubt has a crush on mother, Sarah. It was a very intriguing ride to say the least and I wasn't disappointed. I say go and see it. This gets a 3 on my "Go See" scale.