Sam Gold, the fuzzy-cheeked Ecstasy smuggler in the period drama “Holy Rollers,” is a pisher next to Jewish arch-criminals Bugsy Siegel and Bernie Madoff. But the wages-of-sin saga of the Brooklyn yeshiva bocher evokes some interesting parallels with those infamous scoundrels.
Neither a big dreamer nor a smooth talker when we meet him, 20-year-old Sam turns out to have a talent for business, as well as a latent cocky streak. Initially overjoyed to have survived and made enough from his first illicit trip to replace the beat-up family stove, in a few short months he’s aggressively challenging his boss’ authority. (Bugsy also thought he was smarter than his chiefs, and we all know how his career panned out.)
Kevin Asch’s tense yet bloodless feature debut revisits a period in 1998 and 1999 when secular Jews used Chassidic recruits to transport drugs from Amsterdam to New York. The Chassids’ reputation for honesty, and their participation in Manhattan’s diamond trade (necessitating regular trips to Amsterdam), allowed them to pass through customs without provoking suspicion.
There’s no pressing reason or relevance to examine this sliver of true crime today, especially as Asch has nothing fresh or cogent to say about the age-old tugs-of-war between spirituality and materialism, tradition and modernity, and religion and secularism. What is intriguing, though, is that Sam’s sense of invincibility, and his willingness to exploit unwitting Jews, foreshadow Madoff’s pathological behavior on a much smaller and less damaging scale.
As “Holy Rollers” begins, Sam (an innocent-looking Jesse Eisenberg, complete with payes) is a polite, unassuming scholar on track to meet and marry an arranged bride. His loving family is proud that he’s potential rabbi material, even though that won’t help their struggling finances.
When there is a hitch in the plan, Sam freaks out at the prospect of joining his less-than-ambitious father in his struggling fabrics shop. Approached at a vulnerable moment by his bad-seed next-door neighbor Yosef (Justin Bartha), Sam is susceptible to a singularly vague job offer.
Yosef is the most street-smart and entertaining character in the picture, with his white Converse shoes and ever-present cigarette providing a jarring contrast to his Chassidic garb and beard. Given his rejection of observant Judaism, however, one wonders why he doesn’t shave and get a hip pad in Manhattan.
Then again, nobody has a long-range plan. Yosef and Jackie (Danny Abeckaser), the Israeli-born New York–based head of the Ecstasy ring, are shallow, fun-loving guys who’ve hit on a scheme. When they meet drug merchants wise to the advantages of carrying automatic weapons and trafficking heroin, they look like tourists who’ve stumbled into the old Alphabet City.
The story has a familiar arc, albeit without the crime-movie violence that contemporary audiences seemingly crave, although the director aspires to avoid at least some clichés. In practice, what he’s done is populate his atypical milieu with underdeveloped characters whose motivations and goals are frustratingly hazy.
“Holy Rollers” plays at first like a tale of the corruption of an innocent, with red-lit nightclubs and hallways underscoring Sam’s descent into hell. But he evinces so few moral qualms, and becomes so expert at the racket so quickly, that our empathy evaporates. It certainly doesn’t help that Sam veers from naive to clever to clueless whenever it suits the script.
The only constant is his desire for gelt (his and Yosef’s favorite word), but what drives him remains perpetually unclear. The confusion is only amplified by Sam Gold’s last name, with Asch pilfering a page from David Mamet’s book of nasty, obvious shorthand.
Sam doesn’t buy stuff with his money or brag about his growing wad. And if he’s rejecting and rebelling against his father’s decent, honest, small-potatoes existence, that’s unlikely to win Sam our admiration.
“Holy Rollers” depicts bad Jews, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad for the Jews. Perfectly watchable as it unfolds on the screen, it’s too superficial and unmemorable to leave any lasting anti-Jewish impression. If only the same could be said of Bernie Madoff.
CJM features screening and talk
Director Kevin Asch and screenwriter Antonio Macia will speak and answer questions after a screening of “Holy Rollers” at 7 p.m. Wednesday, June 9 at the Contemporary Jewish Museum, 736 Mission St., S.F. The event, co-presented by the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, is $10. The museum will be closed. www.thecjm.org.
“Holy Rollers” opens June 11 at the Lumiere in San Francisco and the Shattuck in Berkeley.