Review of The Believer (2001) by Hannibal O — 25 Aug 2008
Let me get this out of the way first: Ryan Gosling is a great actor. I've only seen him in 3 films, but he's absolutely dominated everyone with his acting. So its not his performance that doesn't work.
Its Henry Bean's (the director) lecturing and self-satisfied screenplay that keeps this mildly interesting character study from evolving into anything more worthwhile. Gosling's character is a militantly self-hating Jew.
Why? Not sure really. Through the use of some clumsily overdramatic flashbacks, we learn the character enraged his Hebrew School teachers by challenging long accepted laws of Judaism. OK, fine. How that evolves into violent hatred for his own religion is anyone's guess.
The film is packed with various speeches, lectures, and theological bantering. Much of it ends with someone getting a baseball bat to the head. Furthermore, when Billy Zane is cast as the leader of a extremist political party, you know you're in deep shit.
The film has a lot of problems. It contains some pretty bad and sloppy storytelling: a fascist who discovers the main character's secret disappears midway with no explanation; Summer Phoenix's character is irritatingly under-written; the main character's value to Zane's fascist roundtable is a riddle thats unanswered; and the main character's inevitable fate is so romanticized as to render it gutless.
We're given absolutely nothing in the way of motivation in regards to the main character's conversion to Nazism. There are much better films that deal with this subject matter. I think the writer-director simply couldn't get past the idea stage and actually tell a good story.
Thats unfortunate considering what a great performance Gosling gives.
This review of The Believer (2001) was written by Hannibal O on 25 Aug 2008.
The Believer has generally received very positive reviews.
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