In Nobel Son, Barkley Michaelson (Bryan Greenberg) is struggling to finish his Ph.D. thesis when his father Eli (Alan Rickman), a long-striding, socially artless, egomaniacal bastard, wins the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. While Eli and his wife Sarah (Mary Steenburgen), a forensics specialist and fellow academician, travel to accept the award, the former’s indiscretions, past and present, complicate matters. After a late-night hook-up with a kooky artist chick (Eliza Dushku), Barkley is kidnapped and ransomed by Thaddeus (Shawn Hatosy), who turns out to have a long-held grudge against Eli. Soon, Barkley becomes complicit in Thaddeus’ scheme, and eventually everyone gets in on the kidnapping, philandering and blackmail. And Pat Benatar is quoted… twice.

The other indie films of director Randall Miller (Marilyn Hotchkiss Ballroom Dancing & Charm School, Bottle Shock) have, to various degrees, been intriguingly sketched if fitfully misguided character ensembles, up-and-down affairs in which fantastic scenes abut awkward and/or pointless ones. Nobel Son is Miller’s most processed work, most concerned with self-satisfied style over substance, and it’s a misstep in a different direction. The movie wants to be a pulse-quickening genre knuckleball, part Zero Effect, part Lucky Number Slevin, part dysfunctional family dramedy. But the tone isn’t at all a match with the material, no matter the gameness of an intriguing ensemble cast, and imprinted upon every frame, under the electro-throb score from Paul Oakenfold and Mark Adler, is effort, with a capital E. (Unclaimed Freight/Freestyle Releasing, R, 111 minutes)