You know that Rihanna song, “Good Girl Gone Bad?” Well, Holy Rollers is the story of a good boy gone bad. A very good boy, Sam Gold (Jesse Eisenberg) is a Hasidic Jew and lives in Brooklyn with his family. Going to school to be a rabbi, Sam follows all rules set by his religion and parents. Since his family is struggling economically and Sam is of age, his parents attempt to arrange a marriage with Zeldy Lazar (Stella Keitel) who is the eldest daughter of a wealthy family. Sam desires to do anything to help his family, be it suffering through his awkward date or coming up with improved business practices to help save his father’s fabric store from losing money. However, his father, Mendel (Mark Ivanir) prefers to keep things simple and have return customers rather take Sam’s suggestions.

Soon Sam gets fed up and the downward spiral begins. He finds out that his next-door-neighbor and best friend’s older brother, Yosef Zimmerman (Justin Bartha) has been importing “medicine” from Europe and making money to support his family. He recruits Sam who brings along his friend Leon (Jason Fuchs) and they travel to Amsterdam to help Yoseph. At the end of the trip they find out that what they were doing was not helping heal the poor but smuggling ecstasy.

This story is long and complex but it is interesting to see how easy it is for someone who has always been good to become bad. Sam’s discomfort with his new job slowly fades away and he soon becomes the  best in the business, even surpassing Yoseph. However, when he finds that he has gotten himself in too deep, there is no way for him to get out of this dangerous business.

Courtesy of First Independent Pictures

At the end of the movie, you learn that this story was inspired by true events in the late nineties when Hasidic Jews were recruited as mules to smuggle ecstasy from Europe which gives it a dose of reality. A very interesting and intense movie, it won’t be for everyone but the story will consume you and make you wonder about how quickly it is for a person’s life to change.

Tags: Celebrities, Movies

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 20th, 2010 at 5:12 pm and is filed under celebrity&lifestyle, Other. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.