Review: Nobel Son

The husband-and-wife team that brought us the father-and-son drama “Bottle Shock,” set in a California vineyard, release another story with father-and-son friction. This one is set in California groves of academe. Randall Miller, son of a New York scientist, directs a script he co-wrote with co-producer Jody Savin. Barkley Michaelson (Bryan Greenberg) is stymied on his anthropology dissertation on cannibalism when his dad Eli Michaelson (Alan Rickman) wins the Nobel Prize for chemistry. The old man is a royal asshole. His wife Sarah (Mary Steenburgen) is a forensic psychiatrist who testified on Jeffrey Dahmer’s mental health. A couple of escaped mental patients with serious father issues kidnap Barkley, who morphs into a colluding kidnapee. Turns out his dad’s legacy was indeed seminal. Seems he stole a colleague’s research and inseminated his wife. “Nobel Son” is a nasty caper pocked with uninteresting malice. It’s insufficiently cynical to really make us squirm. Plot machinations are baroque and, in the end, boring. With Thaddeus James, Bill Pullman, Eliza Dushku, Danny DeVito and a single molecule spectroscopy advisor. 110m. Anamorphic 2.40 widescreen. (Bill Stamets)