Holy Rollers movie review

Holy Rollers, released in select theaters by First Independent Pictures on May 21st, is the moving account of a young Hassidic Jew, Sam Gold (Jessie Eisenberg), who is corrupted by nefarious characters who compliment him and recognize him for his business acumen as they pull him into their dark underground ventures. In stark contrast, his father Mendel (Mark Ivanir) urges him to be kind towards people, even rich people, while making less money. Lured into the world of drug smuggling by a fellow Hassidic Jew, Yusef (Justin Ranth), and bringing along his best friend Leon (Jason Fuchs), Sammy is soon taking international flights to Amsterdam and Paris to pick up “medicine” and then returning to New York City to sell it. Later he even inveigles other young Hassidic Jews into joining him. His “disguise” – acting Jewish and religious – is flawless, and he sees nothing wrong in making money to give to his family.

But Sammy’s family thinks otherwise, with his mother Elka (Elizabeth Marvel) rejecting a new stove that Sammy buys her and his friend Leon backing out of the endeavor before he’s in too much trouble. At first Sammy resists Rachel’s (Ari Graynor’s) sexuality and the use of all the drugs on the scene around him, and eventually his greed causes him to try to usurp his boss Jackie’s (Danny A. Abeckaser’s) position, a man who deals with pill-making factories guarded by men with machine guns who’s quite territorial himself! Mendel Gold has to throw his son Sammy out of his home as a criminal and keep him from the rest of their community and be shamed by him, and Sammy also loses his chance for an arranged marriage with a young Jewish girl that he likes.

What so many Americans find typical (recreational drugs, dance clubs, and sex outside of marriage), Sammy has been taught to view as loathsome, but soon he becomes the epitome of all these evils as he yields to many drugs, including heroin. What will happen to him, and will he be able to adjust to a lifestyle where he can never even communicate with those he’s held so dear?

Jessie Eisenberg as Sammy is convincing in conveying an inexperienced youth who doesn’t understand that in the quest for big money life can be quite cut-throat and complex. Most people are a mass of contradictions and Ari Graynor as Rachel is true-to-life as a woman who wants the impossible: to retain her religious and ethnic roots while immersed in a world of luxe and unreality. And Justin Ranth, depicting Yusef, is the bad apple that rots all those around him (in his case, beginning as a sincere effort to pay his family’s bills). Danny A. Beckesar as Jackie, a druggie and a slick international businessman, does a consummate acting job of vacillating between craziness and clarity.

Not many of us take such an extreme journey at such a tender age in life, and the journey Sammy takes in Holy Rollers represents one of choosing personal ethics, changing one’s consciousness and facing potential ruin based on commercial values. Holy Rollers is “based on true events” and this makes it even more compelling to see Danny’s sad efforts as, thinking himself richer and richer, he becomes poorer and poorer.

MPAA Rating: Unrated
Running Time: 88 Minutes
Select Theatrical Release: May 21, 2010

Grade: A

Director: Kevin Asch
Writer: Antonio Macia
Starring: Jessie Eisenberg, Justin Rath, Ari Graynor, Danny A. Abeckaser, Elizabeth Marvel, Mark Ivanir, Jason Fuchs and Q-Tip

Holy Rollers movie review by Christina Zawadiwsky of Movie Room Reviews

Tags: Ari Graynor, Holy Rollers, Jesse Eisenberg