DVD Review: Nobel Son

-

Continuing on with my Alan Rickman kick, I picked up 'Nobel Son'. A 2006 indie heist film about a man named Barkley (Bryan Greenburg) who lives with his parents and is trying to finish his thesis paper on cannibalism. During all of this we find out his arrogant father Eli (Rickman) has just won the Nobel Peace Prize. Eli misses his flight to Stockholm with his parents and winds up kidnapped by Thaddius, (Shawn Hatosy) who is demanding 2 million dollars in ransom. This also happens to be the prize money for winning the Nobel prize, so Eli refuses.

There's a lot of recognizable names in this cast. Mary Steenburgen, Bill Pullman, Ted Danson, Danny DeVito and Eliza Dushku to name a few. What could've been a well crafted heist film turns into a mess with all the "twists" director Randall Miller throws at you. We are supposed to be rooting for Barkley and despise Eli. The way this film plays out you end up doing just the opposite. Eli was my favorite character. (Rick owns the screen every time he's on it) He was a bad man, but he ended up being a lot less annoying than the rest of the characters. The ending is meant to be a surprise, but it ends up feeling like a cluttered mess. The film nosed dives from the interesting opening to just another film with too many "but wait...there's more!" moments.

Recommended: No

Grade: C-

Memorable Quote: "You do D work you get a D Grade" - Eli Michalson (Alan Rickman) This quote was funny to me because of the action he's performing when he says it.

Comments

  1. fairylightsJuly 15, 2010 at 8:13 PM

    Totally agree with your review, I've been steadily working my way through Alan Rickman's work, and this remains the only one of his movies I was unable to finish. It was just poorly done.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thanks for stopping by, let's talk movies!
(comments are moderated to reduce spam)

Popular posts from this blog

Review: The Batman

-
Image
Bruce Wayne (Robert Pattinson) has quietly been trying to make a difference as The Batman in Gotham. He can't be everywhere. He works closely with Lt Jim Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) and they face a puzzling crime by a masked murderer going by The Riddler. (Paul Dano) As the stakes get higher, they realize just how deep corruption runs in Gotham.  The Batman is first and foremost a detective story. Director Matt Reeves obviously took inspiration from films like Se7en and Zodiac when he crafted this story. S e7en is one of my all time favorite films, so that worked well for me. I loved seeing Batman and Gordon work as a team. Same with Batman and Selina. (Zoe Kravitz) They ooze chemistry. As much as I love the Nolan trilogy, Christian Bale only really had good chemistry with Maggie Gyllenhaal. Here, Pattinson and Kravitz click together instantly.  I'll admit I was worried about Pattinson as Batman. His Bruce is VERY mopey, which fits with the story. My main issue with the movie,
Read more

Thursday Movie Picks: Wedding Movies

-
Image
How fitting that Wandering Through The Shelves has us start the month of June with movies about weddings. June brides are a thing, right? At least that's what people kept telling me when I got married in June. I just picked it because it was warm. To be honest, I don't like many wedding movies, so this was kind of tough, but here's a few I can tolerate. 1) Wedding Crashers This is one of my favorite comedies until the last 20 minutes or so when it falls flat on its face. But it's so hilarious and quotable before all of that, I can forgive it. Lock it up. 2) Rachel Getting Married I used this one for a pick last year but it's easily my favorite movie involving a wedding. The acting is fantastic. I 3) Corpse Bride Truth be told, I wasn't crazy about Corpse Bride, but like I said. Slim pickings in the wedding movie world for me. I'd watch this over a "classic" like My Best Friend's Wedding or Runaway Bride any day.  click th
Read more

Random Ramblings: The Radio Flyer Conundrum

-
Image
Recently, I was talking to someone about who I thought were the best child actors when I was also a child.  Two that really stood out to me were Elijah Wood and Joseph Mazello, and one film those two were in together was called Radio Flyer.  Then I was reminded about the uniqueness of this film. Instead of reviewing the film, I wanted to have an open discussion about the ending. It deals with a tough issue; child abuse. What I’ve noticed is the way that the film ends is interpreted many different ways, and the filmmakers never came forward to say what was right and wrong. I’m interested in hearing everyone’s opinions on it. How did you interpret the ending? Obviously spoiler alerts will follow.. For those of you who haven’t seen the film, the basic premise is this: Two young boys, Mikey (Wood) and Bobby (Mazello) move in with their single mother and her boyfriend, who refers to himself as ‘The King’. It doesn’t take long for The King to start physically abusing Bobby, and the
Read more