The film is about Barkley Michaelson (Bryan Greenberg) who is struggling to finish his Ph.D. thesis when his father, the learned Eli Michaelson (Alan Rickman), wins the Nobel Prize for Chemistry.  But Eli's past indiscretions begin to collide with the present. When Barkley is kidnapped on the eve of his father accepting the prize, Eli refuses to pay the ransom.  So starts a game of intrigue and deception that proves that payback's a bitch.