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Eisenberg and Bartha Are Drug-Dealing Hasidic Jews in Holy Rollers

by Alex Billington
November 15, 2007
Source: Hollywood Reporter

The concept of this movie tied to the name should give you a chuckle: Holy Rollers, about two adolescent Hasidic Jews that become drug dealers in Brooklyn. It is part drama, but it is also part comedy. The two stars are Jesse Eisenberg, from The Squid and the Whale, and Justin Bartha, from National Treasure. This sounds like another movie that'll go down as a great stand-out comedic Jewish moment in Hollywood history, alongside of the opening scene in Snatch and The Hebrew Hammer. I'm already looking forward to this and it's not even going into production until spring next year!

First-timer Kevin Asch is directing a script from Antonio Macia. Set in 1999, the film is ripped from true-crime headlines and follows an impressionable youth (Eisenberg) from an Orthodox Brooklyn community. He's lured into becoming an Ecstasy dealer by a friend (Bartha) with ties to an Israeli drug cartel. The screenplay was loosely inspired by real-life 1990s-era crimes where Hasidic Jews were recruited as mules to smuggle drugs into the US.

Now all they're missing is casting the Hebrew Hammer himself, Adam Goldberg, in some role, whether it be a cameo or some other hilarious part. On top of two great comedic actors, Eisenberg and Bartha, they're shooting in New York (and not LA), which at least to me means that they seem to know what they're doing. It's a personal pet peeve when something like this that heavily relies on the location of New York isn't actually shooting there, but thankfully that isn't the case here. I'll definitely be looking forward to this one.

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