Nobel Son

Alan Rickman always plays odious but smart with sangfroid. Channeling his performances as Judge Turpin in Sweeney Todd and Severus Snape from the Harry Potter films, he’s in his element in Nobel Son as a prizewinning, lecherous professor who tries to ignore the phone when his son Barkley (Greenberg) is kidnapped and held for ransom. Director Randall Miller shows off some Paul Greengrass–style camerawork: A handheld is whisked around Barkley as he gets some rough duct-tape treatment, and brutality is meted out at a blurry, fast-cut rate. A revved-up techno soundtrack from Paul Oakenfold complements the pace as the plot turns to outrageous counterplot and revenge.