NOBEL SON (2007)

Starring: Alan Rickman, Mary Steenburgen, Danny DeVito, Bill Pullman & Eliza Dushku

Director: Randall Miller

Perhaps one of the greatest things about being a movie lover is running across one of those rare, undiscovered gems -- the twisting thriller with the audacity to demand that you actually use your brain to solve the mystery, or the outrageous comedy that was just a bit ahead of its time and didn't find an audience until it was long gone from theaters. Nobel Son is none of those things.

Philandering chemistry professor and recent Nobel prize winner Eli Michaelson (Rickman) is in Stockholm to collect his award when he and his wife, Sarah (Steenburgen), receive word that their son, Barkley (Bryan Greenberg) -- a Game Boy-obsessed college student writing his Ph.D. thesis on cannibalism -- has been kidnapped. If they ever hope to see Barkley alive again, Eli and Sarah are to drop two million dollars in unmarked bills in the trunk of a display car at a local shopping mall. Later, after the drop has been made, it quickly becomes apparent that this isn't your typical kidnapping. As the mystery deepens and spacey detective Max Mariner (Pullman) struggles to pinpoint a suspect, the fact that Eli was hated by nearly everyone he ever met leads the detective to suspect everyone from the prickly professor's own son to a flaky local artist who goes by the name City Hall (Dushku).

Directed like the coked-up, sopping wet fever dream of an ADHD film student who flushed all of his Ritalin, Nobel Son is hands-down one of the most obnoxious movies in recent memory. In the opening minutes, Paul oakenfold's throbbing, energetic techno score seems like exactly the kind of movie glue that might just hold this mess together and keep it moving. Then the realization sets in that it never goes away -- even in the dialogue scenes -- at which point it becomes not just distracting, but grotesquely overbearing. As if an entire movie set to 120 bpm wasn't annoying enough (perhaps, like being handed special glasses when you purchase a ticket to a 3-D film, audiences going to see Nobel Son should be given a pacifier and a glow stick before entering the theater), the fact that a talented cast is given little to do as the camera whooshes, swooshes, and cranes around them makes the entire experience truly frustrating. Of all of these actors, Rickman is given the most to do as the cruel, pompous laureate whose "genius side of the brain is so big that it swallowed up the civilized side," and while Steenburgen and Pullman have one or two fun character beats, the rest of the cast seems to pop in for their quirky cameos before vanishing almost as quickly as they appeared.

If a thriller is going to be "clever," it pays for the filmmakers to exercise a little restraint so the audience can have some room to reflect on the story as it twists and turns to a satisfying conclusion. Nobel Son does the exact opposite, straining to force cleverness where there is none, and then attempting to dazzle by resorting to the sort of cinematic tricks that even a coked-up, hyperactive film student would recognize as cliché. (110 mins.)

My Rating: *1/2

A SERIOUS MAN (2009)

Starring: Michael Stuhlbarg

Director: Joel & Ethan Coen

With A Serious Man, Joel and Ethan Coen create a jet-black comedy about anxiety and dread so funny -- and so disturbing -- that snack counters should sell Klonopin along with the popcorn.

After being informed by his doctor that he's in perfect health, math professor Larry Gopnik's (Stuhlbarg) world quickly unravels. In quick succession, his mentally unstable brother moves in, a student offers Larry a bribe for a passing grade, his wife informs him their marriage is over, he receives unexpected angry calls from a Columbia Record Club debt collector, and his teenage kids continue to ignore him, apart from his ability to fix their TV's reception problems. As Larry slowly loses control over his surroundings, he seeks counsel from various rabbis, whose parables offer little help to alleviate his anxiety and fear.

Giving away too much more of the plot would be unkind, because experiencing the totality and swiftness with which Larry's life crashes down around him is half the fun of the movie. The Coens fashion a slow-motion existential train wreck where a good and honest man drowns in events that relentlessly grow more outlandish and tragic. And understand that for all the unending pain, there are big laughs throughout -- particularly from Larry's wife's new love, Sy Ableman. Whenever Sy speaks to Larry, he offers the most caring and supportive sentiments imaginable, but he delivers them in a voice so lulling and smooth that it hilariously amplifies their insincerity.

Yet, for all the belly laughs (including a brilliant joke that gets set up in the first ten minutes but doesn't pay off until nearly the end of the movie), this is at heart a Kafka-esque nightmare. The movie underscores the fact that the Coens are remarkably talented filmmakers -- very few directors could make audiences feel dread and panic this acutely while simultaneously doubling them up with laughter.

But it's the unease and not the laughter that the Coens end with, and it's hard to ignore that this is their third film in a row to wrap up with a profound spiritual bummer. The Coen brothers used to temper their skeptical view of people and life with occasional glimpses of positivity -- it's hard to find a more likeable and good-hearted hero than Fargo's Marge Gunderson, unless it's "The Dude." But, A Serious Man finds Joel and Ethan entrenched in pessimism, and that might be the most disquieting aspect of the whole movie. (105 mins.)

My Rating: ***