Holy Rollers

HOLY ROLLERS (CINEMA)
Crabtree Films 

Release date: July 8th 2011
Certificate (UK): 15
Runtime: 89 Minutes

Director: Kevin Asch

Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Justin Bartha, Ari Graynor, Danny Abeckaser, Q-Tip

Official movie Site

As we get older we lose the innocence we had as children. There’s no way around it; our experiences in the world inevitably does this to us. It’s the price we pay for knowledge and we let go little by little these childhood traits.

But sometimes there are those who cause us to lose these parts of ourselves before it’s time.

Holy Rollers is inspired by true events involving Ecstasy-smuggling Hasidic Jews from New York City in the late 1990′s (an interesting background story of the time here).

Sam Gold (Eisenberg) is one of those young men, belonging to an Orthodox Brooklyn community and about to follow the path his family has chosen for him. He is deeply devoted to his faith and to his family. He works for his father in his fabric shop and studies hard, everyone is proud of him and he is an asset to the local Jewish community. Eventually he will get married and start his own family and carry on these traditions.

Sam starts to be lead astray by his best friend’s older brother, Yosef (Justin Bartha) and becomes innocently entangled in the world of drug-smuggling. While also Jewish, Yosef has a completely different lifestyle, outlook and goals. He is able to pay all of his family’s bills and even the mortgage on the house and entices Sam with the idea that he too can be a good provider like him.

It’s not long before he’s at parties meeting girls and talking to drug bosses but at first he has no idea that the ‘medicine’ Yosef told him he would be importing from Amsterdam is actually Ecstasy. The people around him see that he is a good at heart and they do their best to exploit his nature and innocence, drawing him deeper into their seedy underworld where it’s almost impossible to walk from. With his family growing suspicious and his best friend Leon no longer talking him, it’s only a matter of time before Sam realises just how far from home Yosef has lead him.

Holy Rollers contains very strong performances from Eisenberg and Bartha and I would go as far as saying that these are their best roles so far. The religious premise makes for a very different setting that could trigger some political waves, too (here in Europe anyway) but it remains character-driven throughout with a tight and focused story about innocence lost.

There are moments however when it misses the emotion of what’s happening to Sam and therefore feels more like a documentary than a drama, but there are scenes that are powerful and emotional like when Sam’s father confronts him about what he’s doing.

The factual raw material is compelling and relevant, considering what events like these mean to any community, even if some people won’t necessarily like it.

Patrick Samuel & Jonahh Oestreich

Patrick and Jonahh are the Editors in Chief at Static Mass.

Patrick is a composer and music producer with a philosophy degree. Static Mass is where he lives his passion for film and writing about it. A fan of film classics, documentaries and World Cinema, Patrick prefers films with an impeccable way of storytelling that reflect on the human condition.

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