A rare drug-crime movie devoid of violence, and pretty much anything in the way of excite ment, Kevin Asch’s middling “Holy Rollers” is inspired by the true story of Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn who were recruited into an unlikely smuggling scheme in the late 1990s.
Jesse Eisenberg (“Adventureland”) is miscast as Sam, a devout young Orthodox man who naively lets a pal’s brother (Justin Bartha of “The Hangover”) introduce him to a shady Israeli (Danny A. Abeckaser).
Our conflicted hero is handsomely compensated for a roundtrip to Amsterdam and smuggling “medicine” back from Amsterdam in his luggage.
In real life, more than a million pills of ecstasy were smuggled before the authorities smashed the ring. Between recruiting others for the scheme and getting involved with the smuggling chief’s sexy girlfriend (Ari Graynor), Sam is soon an outcast from his family and the Hasidic community.
Eisenberg never makes Sam’s seduction entirely convincing, and Asch goes so far out of his way to avoid sensationalizing the material that “Holy Rollers” is a bit of a snooze.