Despite what you may think, Holy Rollers isn’t about grandmas heading to Pentecostal church bingo, nor does it have anything to do with a virginal roller derby team. It’s the true story of young Hassidic Jews who smuggled Ecstasy from Amsterdam to Brooklyn in the late 1990s.
Jesse Eisenberg stars as Sam Gold, a good Jewish boy studying to be a rabbi and awaiting approval for his arranged marriage. But when he’s rejected by the family of his would-be bride for what he thinks are financial shortcomings, he allows himself to be sucked over to the dark side by his neighbor, Yosef (The Hangover’s Justin Bartha), who has ties to an Israeli drug cartel. Told to “mind your business and act Jewish,” Sam finds his religion is the perfect cover for an unsuspected drug runner in the middle of a major crisis of faith.
Watching the movie, it has shades of The Believer, the film that launched Ryan Gosling’s career. Many people felt Gosling was able to connect with the role of a Neo-Nazi Jew because he was raised Mormon and could understand, not necessarily zealotry, but what an intense religious connection can mean. Similarly, screenwriter Antonio Macia is a converted Mormon who’s gone on lengthy missions. Could it be that his background is one of the reasons he wanted to write this film?
"The other thing about him is he grew up in a Catholic family,” Eisenberg points out. “He chose Mormonism himself, which I think makes it that much more interesting. He’s is very interested in religion. He has, this is something I have trouble relating to, very complicated ties to his faith; conflicts in it, great affection. When he wrote the script, the great conflict for my character of faith and blind faith, how much does he feel invested spiritually in Judaism and does he feel it strongly enough to stray? That was the main interest for Antonio.”
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