Holy Rollers

THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY Eisenberg, left, struggles to accept life as a Hasidic drug mule.

The true story of a group of Hasidic Jews recruited to smuggle drugs into the U.S. in the late ’90s sounds as if it might be grist for an exciting thriller and a fascinating character study. But after an absorbing start, Holy Rollers reveals itself as a blander parable about the dangers of greed. The prodigal Sam (Eisenberg) thinks his tailor father is an all-too-easy mark, and he wants a way to get rich quick—a desire accelerated when he learns a neighboring family considers him a less-than-ideal husband for their daughter. Because customs guards would never suspect a Hasid, he’s roped into a scheme to import Ecstasy (which he thinks is medicine) from Amsterdam, a locale that conveniently enables him to observe the curiosities of the world’s most famous red-light district.

Adventureland’s Eisenberg does a capable job of upping his religiosity, although the supporting players are so broad they seem to have been imported from the Catskills. The movie holds your attention so long as Sam is discovering the temptations of sex and sushi (“it’s like lox”), although for a better film on the agony of straying from the fold, check out the little-seen Mendy: A Question of Faith. An upshot that finds Sam achieving spiritual renewal by putting on tefillin seems like too easy an exit strategy for a movie that never finds the heart of its subject.

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