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Jessie Eisenberg stars as Sam Gold in Holy Rollers.

May 24, 2010 By Peter Nichols Web Exclusive

When it comes to film premises, few can grab you quite like that of Holy Rollers: Hassdic teens build ecstasy smuggling empire. On top of that, it's "based on true events." How could you go wrong?

As it turns out, a lot of ways.

Holy Rollers (puns on top of puns!), the feature-length debut of director Kevin Asch, tells the tale of Sam Gold (Jessie Eisenberg), a nice, uptight Jewish boy preparing for life as a Hassidic Rabbi with his equally devout friend Leon (Jason Fuchs). In order to advance his life further, Sam's parents try to arrange a marriage with a neighborhood girl. But when his wife-to-be's family nix the marriage, Sam blames it on his parents' financial standing and falls in with Yosef (a winning Justin Bartha), Leon's shady brother. Yosef, you see, has a way for Sam to make some extra gelt: transporting "medicine" from Amsterdam to New York for "rich old people."

Sadly, what could have been either an enlightening look at modern Hassidic culture or a peerless dark comedy is neither. As a dark comedy, Rollers would have been untouchable, given the sheer absurdity of the premise mixed with the nebbish charm of Eisenberg. Instead, by treating the subject matter with an unflinching sincerity befitting its main character, it becomes a limp drama cross-bred with a by-the-numbers rags-to-riches-to-rags drug flick.

The cast, however, is uniformly good. Eisenberg doesn't step too far out of his twitchy comfort zone as Sam, but what he does is excellent. He gives Sam a restless intelligence, and watching prickly pragmatism slowly overtake his moral objections is more fun than it should be. Even erstwhile rapper Q-Tip, appearing as Sam's connection to Amsterdam's Jewish Mafia, makes the most of a limited role. The standout though is Bartha, whose performance as a cynical man of God is frequently the best thing on screen.

But Rollers never lives up to its stellar premise or performances. The element that could have elevated the material—the Hassidic culture—is dealt with but serves more as window dressing than an addition to thematic relevance. What initially looks like a fresh take on a worn genre instead ends up as stale as last year's matzoh. (http://holyrollersfilm.com)

Author rating: 4/10