Nobel Son is noble effort at taking a decent concept, some decent ideas, and some excellent talent and molding them into something cohesive. I get what they were trying for, but it didn't get moving quickly enough to build up any steam. Alan Rickman is a philandering chemist who is cheating on Mary Steenbergen of all people. Bryan Greenberg plays their PhD student Anthropologist son. I tried to like it just because it featured an Anthro major, but then I found out his thesis was about cannibals and lost the interest I manufactured.

So Rickman wins a Nobel prize, Greenberg meets an eccentric hottie (Eliza Dushku), there's a kidnapping and ransom situation, and it ends up for me with a "really, that's it?" I'd wager they could have chopped half an hour out of it and it would have been just as entertaining to me. There are a few twists, but I was never invested enough to care. The Paul Oakenfold soundtrack just made me feel like the year 2000 and didn't add or detract to be honest.

The best part for me was recognizing a friend from college who was an extra in a reaction shot all of her own. Rickman fans would be advised to skip this one, along with anyone else considering watching it. I should have listened to Will Goss. He warned me, I stopped it once, but I just gave in. I should not have kept trying.

The DVD includes some Deleted Scenes [4:45], a Featurette [13:00] that doesn't add too much to the experience, and a Feature Commentary with director Randall Miller, co-writer Jody Savin, and actors Greenberg, Dushku, and Mike Ozier.