Holy Rollers – Review

Based on a true story, Holy Rollers depicts a young Orthodox Jew in Brooklyn who gets caught up in International drug trade in the late 1990’s. Jesse Eisenberg (Adventureland, Zombieland) plays Sam Gold, striking pay dirt by smuggling ecstasy from Amsterdam. Who would ever suspect a young Jew in traditional dress as a drug mule? The plot of Holy Rollers sounds more like a fantasy Albert Brooks might churn out.

The orthodox community in New York is extremely tight-knit. Gold works for his father in the garment district, prays often at home and at Temple, and courts a girl at arms-length on his parents’ couch. Exuding awkwardness, Sam makes another Jew, Woody Allen, look like a smooth operator. Enter Justin Bartha (National Treasure films and The Hangover) as Yosef, a fallen-away Jew who tempts Gold with women, cars, independence, and lucre. The running leitmotif of the film: Man’s fall from grace as the dialogue of God and Adam in the Garden of Eden is recounted three times. Gold’s fall includes several comic sequences. Alone in a seedy hotel room, he furtively checks out topless tennis players, evening soft-core porn in Holland. In another, when an exotic blonde attempts to give him a cocktail to relax, you have never seen one from tribe of Judah backpedal so fast.

Director Kevin Asch captures Sam’s Dante-like descent into hell with the somber red lights of the Netherworld club. After he takes X for the first time, Sam wanders aimlessly, reminiscent of Catch-22’s Yossarian, searching for salvation as a mournful sax and piano play in the background. Predictably Sam cuts off his peyos (those curly sideburns) as he breaks from his family (Cue Yentl). As the film tumbles forward toward its inevitable denouement, Gold’s innocence-turned-naiveté wears thin. Rapper Q-Tip’s brief role as Netherlandian drug dealer is wasted. In the 1970′s the Scottish Bay City Rollers made “Saturday Night” their anthem, touting dancing and partying; this Holy Roller, on the other hand, would have been better off spending Saturday night with his parents at Temple.

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