THE BELIEVER

REVIEWED BY CHARITY BISHOP

Our rating: 2 out of 5

Because of: nudity, sexual content, foul language

Rated:

Trying to write a review of a film like this is exceedingly difficult because there is no bottom line and there is no defining moral. The Believer is a highly controversial film about a young man struggling to determine who he is through violence, hatred, racism, and his own unique perusal of the Jewish faith. Danny Balint (Ryan Gosling) is the kind of kid you don't want on your block. A skinhead, swastika-wearing punk, Danny has made it his lifelong ambition to hate Jews. In fact, he wants to bring an end to the race completely. Danny happens to wander into a fascist meeting one evening held at the house of Lina Moebius (Theresa Russell), a pro-elite race individual who wants to create a nationwide racist movement.

Danny's ideas of point-blank murdering Jews are shocking to Lina and her daughter Carla (Summer Phoenix) but well accepted by the rest of the group, who find him fascinating and charismatic. He has radical ideas but an articulate manner of speech. More dangerous, his ideas are expressed with such passion and finality, the viewer finds himself accepting them. Why does mankind loathe the Jews? Because it's born into us, just as we hunger for devotion, give in to primal instincts, and know the laws of gravity, we also hate Jews. Danny wants to create a new form of government where "whites are at the top, blacks are at the bottom, and Orientals, Hispanics, and everyone else are in-between." Lina's friend Curtis (Billy Zane) finds Danny inspirational and wants to bring him into the group, giving him the opportunity to speak in front of elite groups. While Danny stalls over the fundraising effort, he makes friends among other fascists and practices illegal techniques... bomb-wiring, shooting high-powered rifles, and beating up on Jewish boys in the subway.

Then a reporter appears from the New York Times and unearths Danny's little secret. He's fascinated with the young man's outlandish ideas, but has one question... how can he believe all of these things when he is a Jew? Danny is hiding a dirty little secret from the world: he grew up a Jew, attended Jewish institutions, and can read the Torah in its original language. He spouts hatred but deep down respects the faith. He refuses to allow his friends to desecrate holy documents, but also plants bombs in the synagogue. He repairs a Torah and compulsively wears the holy scribe beneath his t-shirt. Danny is a time bomb waiting to go off, a conflicted young man who is determined to hate God and the Jews but cannot deny deep down that he is one. The film was deemed controversial for obvious reasons- - blasphemy runs rampant, along with anti-Semitic views -- but it really makes you think. No matter what Nazi t-shirts he wore, or what spouted forth from his lips, deep down Daniel was still a Jew. He still acknowledged that God existed. If we flee from God, turn our back on Him, challenge Him to destroy us, deep down do we still experience that nagging feeling of guilt, the prodding of the Almighty to return? This film implies that we do.

There is no compounding moral to The Believer. It's basically the story of one boy's struggle between will and desire. It's a conflict of interests to an incredible degree. It's both thought provoking and intellectually disturbing. As to the question if it raises anti-Jewish feelings, I don't honestly know the answer. The boys' hatred of Jews is extremely difficult to watch. They beat up kids on the subway, practice sharp shooting with the intention of murder, and try to assassinate high-ranking Jewish officials. When faced with the gruesome reality of the Holocaust by speaking with survivors after being jailed for pro-Nazi actions, half the group mocks what they went through. Danny is the most strongly affected, first reacting with Nazi propaganda, then with anger at the injustice they "allowed themselves" to suffer. The story told of a man whose child was murdered before his eyes is replayed throughout the story in Danny's imagination, each time with a slightly different ending. The boys go into Jewish restaurants and bring up pivotal questions concerning the menu. The mock God and religion in general. I did not appreciate the fact that the only people to use Jesus' name in vain were Jews.

By in large Danny says that all Jews are immoral, sex-crazed, preachy fanatics who have used the Holocaust to their own advantage. He likens Jesus to the race, saying that the fate of the Jews has always been to get themselves killed off. "If Jesus caused that much trouble simply by dying, imagine what might happen if we killed them all!" He argues with his teacher in school, calls God a "self-absorbed bully," and asks God to strike him dead. In a strange twist, Carla becomes fascinated with the culture. She begins to study the Torah, attend the synagogue, and observe Jewish practices, much to his amusement. The film has a disturbing ending that implies either that God does not exist or hell to Danny would be endless stairs filled with "nothingness." This is merely the scope of the film, not the content, which is brutal. Surprisingly there's no gore and very little violence. Danny and another boy get into a scrap; they bloody up one another pretty good. It's implied the boys are jailed for beating up two black men.

Holocaust survivors talk about having people murdered in front of them, including a soldier skewering a little boy on his bayonet and dripping the blood on his father. The woman in the group says because she refused to sleep with the officer on watch, he killed her sister. Sexual content is more pervasive. After bailing Danny out of jail, Carla brings him back to the house and tells him to "hurt" her. The next morning when he leaves her face is badly bruised around the mouth. When she refuses to see him again, he tells her he'll be coming to her room that night "whether she likes it or not." She relents and he creeps up to the window to find her engaged in a tryst with Curtis. The scene involves fairly graphic content and female nudity. We see her bare breasts on several other occasions (in one scene Danny tells her not to look at the Torah unclothed and throws her a shirt). While proving his point about the Jews, Danny uses extremely vulgar and crass innuendo to illustrate why they're sexually perverted. One of Danny's friends urinates in the synagogue. Sexual dialogue comes up on other occasions, including more than 40 uses of the f-word and two abuses of Jesus' name. 

The movie is interesting and psychologically disturbing in many ways but not worth all the slime you have to wade through in order to attempt to understand the twisted mindset of its leading character. The director made it quite clear that he tried to show the Jewish faith as much respect as possible while filming... using a Torah that had not been blessed and was incomplete for the boys to rip apart, not shooting profanity in the same frame as the alter, and avoiding ultimate desecration of the faith. He would have done us all a favor to tighten up the language. One or two f-words are understandable given the rough nature of the boys, but using them every other word lessens the emotional impact the movie could have given. The scene of sexual content also had no explanation or bearing on the plot. Ryan Gosling carries off the film with an Oscar-worthy performance but the elements combined leave a lot to be desired. Oh, yes, and the film is loosely based on a real-life Jewish Nazi during the '60's.