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If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

SPOILER: I was able to watch this on Netflix streaming movies. For me, a Roman Catholic raised in the deep south and with zero knowledge of the ways and lives of New York Hasidic Jews, it was a pleasure to get a glimpse of a vastly different lifestyle and system of beliefs.Jesse Eisenberg, who was so good in 'Social Network', is really good here. His character, Sam Gold, is 20, and the family expectations are that he will continue his studies and become a Rabbi. As the movie begins he works with his father in fine garment materials, and is meeting the girl he is being arranged to marry.But things take a very quick change when another Jew, a bit older and a bit more worldly, asks if he would like to take a trip to Europe and make $1000. Sam asks the questions, is assured nothing funny is going on. But as we soon find out they are smuggling Ectasy in from Amsterdam, using the young Hasidic Jews as mules, not raising any suspicion at customs.This is the coming of age of Sam, but in a very dangerous manner. The closing credits explain how they were caught and what prison time they served, but the very ending credits say the characters and situations are fiction, so I'm not sure what to believe. Still, a good movie. Also interesting that Eisenberg's real younger sister plays Sam's younger sister in the movie.

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

Based on real events in the 90s, apparently, Holy Rollers tells the story of Sam Gold, (Jesse Eisenberg) a Brooklyn Hasidic Jew who, feeling hemmed in by the predetermined path mapped out for him, becomes involved in drug smuggling using Hasidic Jews as mules because they don't - or didn't, at that point - get searched by airport Customs.I had two problems with this film. One, while I understand that much of Sam's background had to be shown for expositional and dramatic purposes, it wasn't something which I felt easy to get to grips with. Sam's fall from grace therefore didn't have anything like the impact for me that it would for someone from his background. The other was that, for a film which was potentially quite dramatic, I didn't find much drama in it. It was all rather mundane, and drab, and "so what?" Even when potentially dramatic moments arrived (like arguments during drug meets), nothing dramatic happened.Jesse Eisenberg did well in the thankless role of Sam: for me, though, Ari Graynor was the only thing worth watching, perhaps because she played the only character who was attractive, sympathetic, and who I could identify with.

In this compellingly acted but underwritten true-life saga, Sammy Gold (Jesse Eisenberg) is a good Hasidic Jewish boy who works with his father in the garment district. At twenty, Sammy is naive and polite. He's supposed to get married, though the girl switches to somebody else. He may become a rabbi, but he's not sure yet. He looks sweet and adorable in his 'payis'side curls, black suit, and big hat. He has a good head for business and is dissatisfied that his unambitious father would put customer relations so far above profits. Along comes Yosef (Justin Bartha), a neighborhood acquaintance, who's making inexplicable amounts of money and wears a flashy Rolex. "Women like shiny things," he says. He claims he's getting paid a lot just for carrying medicine over from Europe for rich people.At Yosef's urging, Sammy joins in on a trip and drags along his neighbor Leon (Jason Fuchs). All they have to do is carry suitcases, not look in them or open them for anybody, not look nervous, and act Jewish. Acting Jewish isn't too hard when you're decked out as an orthodox Jew. They go to Amsterdam and return to New York via Brussels and Montreal. The two young men in their black suits and big hats are forced to wait in a brothel hotel in the red light district: their first trip to Amsterdam isn't very glamorous. (Later Sammy comments that he knows Anne Frank's house is here and he's sorry he doesn't get time to visit it.) Leon freaks out at the obvious illegality of the operation on the first trip and quits; he's getting married. But Sammy, whose life hadn't taken shape, continues the lucrative runs and even becomes a semi-partner, looking after the business side and instructing new recruits. What Sammy and the others with him are doing is acting as drug mules and they're bringing the illegal recreational drug "ecstasy" (MDMA) from Amsterdam to New York. Orthodox Jewish garb is perfect cover. Who would suspect such a person? The ringleader is Jackie Soloman (Danny A. Abeckaser), an Israeli. Sammy is charmed by, and partly charms, Jackie's girlfriend Rachel (Ari Graynor). Though he pretends to be still working for his father, Sammy allows Jackie and his world to dominate his life.As played by Eisenberg with a nice mixture of lightness and intensity, Sammy, or Shmu'el as his father and the rabbi call him, is a mass of contradictions that come together perfectly to get him into this mess. He's smart but naive, aggressive but shy, aloof but a people-pleaser, a good boy who becomes a willing criminal. The film informs us that between 1998 and 1999, this group of Hasid mules transported over a million ecstasy tablets from Europe to America. The orthodox Jewish community of Brooklyn, like that of Jerusalem in 'Eyes Wide Open' -- Haim Tabakman's Israeli tale of an married orthodox butcher who gets involved in a secret homosexual love affair -- is tight and small, and word eventually gets around that Sammy is doing something very, very wrong. His father disowns him and he becomes isolated from family and community. Meanwhile the operation grows too careless and ambitious. New mules are forced to carry heroin, which drug-sniffing dogs can detect, along with the ecstasy. Sammy Gold's world collapses from within and without, and he winds up crying on the steps in Brooklyn next to Leon, begging for help as the police sirens approach.'Holy Rollers' shows us the Hasidic Jews' world and the dark, flashy, world of the constantly partying drug smugglers, who seem to like sampling their own wares. Eventually Rachel persuades Sammy to try them and swig liquor and dance and kiss her and wear a soft brown cashmere Italian suit. (The young Hasids on the take go around in silly looking white Nikes that Jackie gives them. )The tricky part is showing how boys from the one world can get lured into the other one. The best moments, because they're when the crossover becomes plausible, are when Sammy talks about the value of making a little more "gelt," or steps in to challenge a black European ecstasy manufacturer who thinks he can both increase production and raise his price. Jesse Eisenberg, who first attracted notice in the 2002 movie 'Roger Dodger' and then in 'The Squid and the Whale,' 'Adventureland' and 'Zombieland,' has a disarmingly pure quality, and it's fun to watch him take on the central role in a sort of action film. Sammy Gold is all jittery, spunky surface. Eisenberg gives him a nervous intensity that's both oddball and appealing. When he kisses Rachel he thanks her after each kiss while trying to pull away. He can act skittish and bold at the same time. He adds a depth that the screenplay hardly allows. 'Holy Rollers' is his vehicle. It will be remembered for his fresh, vivid performance.The trouble with the movie is that it gets so deep in the back-and-forth spiraling drug-transporting action the moral complexity of the situation goes out the window. Eisenberg's changes of expression and scenes that shift from dark Amsterdam nightclubs and New York raves to Brooklyn row houses bleached out by the cold winter light suggest a world of contradictions the film unfortunately doesn't fully explore.