Holy Rollers (2010)

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Kevin Asch's "Holy Rollers" tells the story of a group of Hasidic Jews recruited as mules to smuggle ecstasy from the Netherlands to the United States. In addition to the main story, there's also a look into the Hasidic world. The main character Sam Gold (Jesse Eisenberg) is expected to marry a woman chosen for him, and he is shown to be afraid to touch a woman not chosen for him. The movie shows the Hasidim having a lifestyle very similar to the evangelical Christians. The look at Sam's life keeps the audience interested in him, but most of the characters aren't really developed enough. Even so, the movie mostly held my attention, both as a look at the drug smuggling story, and a look at the Hasidic culture. Worth seeing.

How's this for a story? For sixth months between 1998 and 1999 one million Ecstasy tablets were smuggled into New York from Amsterdam by a tiny cartel. The young mules were able to sail through customs on account of looking exactly like law-abiding Hasidic Jews – yarmulkes, rekels and all. But these were no dime-store disguises. They really were Hasidic Jews, looking to make some extra gelt. One was even arrested after refusing to ride a bus on the Sabbath, giving cops extra time to catch them. What a great idea for a film, you say? Well now.Jesse Eisenberg plays Sam Gold, a wide-eyed restless Yeshiva from Brooklyn, who dreams of marrying the girl up the street and busting out of his old man's garment business. After his Bad Hasid neighbour (Bartha) offers him a gig ferrying "medicine" to the States, he's soon mingling in nightclubs with pill-popping gentiles, falling for the boss's moll, and symbolically and literally severing ties with his community by cutting off his sidelocks. What's the betting he's heading for some kind of fall? The Yiddish word Aroysgevorfen refers to that which is thrown away, wasted – and so it is with this promising set-up. As Jewish crime pictures go, it was never exactly going to be Once Upon a Time in America, but what could have been a fascinating film about what happens to a person's sense of identity when they so dramatically stray from their faith all but renders Hasidism a gimmicky hook to hang a dull, trite redemption tale on. They may as well have used circus clowns. Sam appears to make the transition to international MDMA-runner without a tremor, while there's zero sense of the sheer trouser-filling, slippery-palmed panic accompanying the actual business of drugs-smuggling. Like the Golem of Jewish mythology, Holy Rollers has feet of clay.

Holly Rollers set's out to tell the story of Sam a honest Hasidic Jew growing up in NYC. Based on a true story Sam ends up with the wrong people after some harsh things happen in his life, and he eventually ends up over seas to sell "medicine".I thought the acting was above par all around, and the story was great, as well, and even a little bit fun. I love the NYC environment in any movie. That's just me, and this is no exception. I felt like I was in the city. Over all it was worth watching and I would recommend it for something to watch on a rainy day!

Sam Gold (Jesse Eisenberg) is a young man whose life is run by his Orthodox Hasidic Jewish upbringing. He lives at home, works for his father, and will marry only the woman he is set up with. Everything changes, however, when he accepts a job offer from Yosef (Justin Bartha), his best friend's older brother who serves as the community's black sheep. Presented as a free trip to Amsterdam, Sam quickly discovers that to return home, he will have to carry Ecstasy through customs. While he is clearly shaken by this foray into the world of drug running, he quickly realizes what kind of financial benefit this trade could bring him. He begins training other down-on-their-luck Jews to smuggle drugs and before long, asserts himself as a valuable part of kingpin Jackie Solomon's (Danny A. Abeckaser). But as the deals get bigger, Sam's family life falls apart and he comes closer and closer to the edge as the feds get closer."Rollers" gets some good-enough performances from the cast. Eisenberg brings a certain emotional attachment to the project and does an admirable job of making Sam his own man instead of a Mark Zuckerberg as a drug mule. Bartha, usually the comic relief, plays well against-type and embraces the black sheep junkie with flair. Based on real events, the film's setting is interesting but fails to develop as I would have liked. There's a great story to be told within the framework of the "Orthodox Jew struggles with the abandonment of his family and faith in order to make good money" plot line. Unfortunately, director Kevin Asch and screenwriter Antonio Macia neglect this, the most intriguing aspect of the tale. Instead, the focus is placed on a cookie-cutter love triangle that stagnates the flow of the film and brought about boredom on my part. A refocused narrative could have made "Holy Rollers" an engrossing film. Instead, the final product is mediocre at best.My site: www.thesoapboxoffice.blogspot.com