The Believer
First there was the Sundance Grand Jury Prize in early 2001. Then came the cable showing on Showtime. It finally hit the theaters in limited release in the Spring of 2002. Now, it is out on DVD. Still, the only comment that I can find about this film is the one from Michael Reuben in the 2002 indie thread:
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It's powerful and engaging, but it's not fun to watch. Gosling's performance deserves all the praise that's been heaped on it; his portrayal of a young Jewish man led into Nazism by his personal war with his own religion -- actually, with his own God -- is genuinely disturbing. A frequent criticism of the film is that it can't explain how his problems with his faith led him to such an extreme choice (it's not like others haven't faced similar doubts about their faith). I think it's a strength, because the film resists pat answers. Instead, it just draws you into the head of someone who's so extreme that even his fellow Nazis end up trying to distance themselves.
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In my view, this criticism is a valid one and becomes the film’s strength as well as its weakness, but more so towards the latter. In the end,
The Believer is a character study. After all, Daniel goes from one extreme (a Jew) to another (a pro-Nazi skinhead). It is a big gap that needed some sort of bridging. And within the framework of Daniel’s character to which director Henry Bean heavily relies his narrative on, it needed to be dealt with. Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center shares these same concerns.
I found the film to be just as confused as the character to which the film is grounded on. Two other storylines in the film were underdeveloped. These include Daniel’s relationship with two fascist members (Theresa Russell and Billy Zane), who are trying to recruit him, and a girlfriend, who in the end, becomes fluent in Hebrew and is seen attending a prayer service at a Jewish synagogue in a relatively short period of time. Sounds like a stretch? Not according to Bean. But their presence within the film’s bigger canvas remains dubious at best.
However, the performance of Ryan Gosling is one that will be remembered most in this film. It is a more seasoned performance than the one he gave in his recent film,
The Slaughter Rule.
The Believer is an actor’s piece in a failed attempt at a more compelling and insightful subject to which it tries to explore.
~Edwin