The Believer

Sound like a movie that would be shown in Camp Toras Chaim on a rainy day.....Bean's script is also troubling....the film features Ryan Gosling (The Notebook, Half Nelson) in a truly mesmerizing performance -....There is a disease spreading in Yeshivas and The Believer merely reflects a single symptom.....Bean gives him his most impassioned moments.... ... Full Review

Engrossing and challenging, The Believer never received the exposure it deserved. Stalking the streets of New York City in a swastika-emblazoned T-shirt, he hooks up with a couple of pseudo-intellectual fascists, Curtis Zampf (Billy Zane) and Lina Moebius (Theresa Russell), who warn him that his Jew-hating shtick doesn't play anymore and is bad for business. ... Full Review

Perhaps then The Believer could have more fruitfully endeavored to answer (or at minimum explore in more rigorous detail) the very question posed by Catullus that it promises to ponder at its outset: "I hate and I love... Final Thoughts: An undeniably powerful and thought-provoking film, bolstered by a visceral, charismatic performance by Ryan Gosling, The Believer succeeds much more as a theological / intellectual debate than as a film. ... Full Review

Despite its occasional gaps and resistance to resolution, The Believer is grounded by Gosling's riveting performance and Bean's careful direction and smart writing.....Such difficult content impeded the film's distribution..... ... Full Review

The Believer can be seen as a kind of Bad Will Hunting , where Danny tries to shake off the shackles of being smart in order to be liberated as lumpen thug. but here The Believer comes up frustratingly short ... Full Review

In this powerful and disturbing drama, Danny Balint (Ryan Gosling) is a member of a gang of racist skinheads who espouses a vile but well-articulated philosophy of anti-Semitism. Danny soon becomes a key member of a skinhead sect led by Curtis (Billy Zane) and Lina (Theresa Russell), but while Curtis and Lina believe that the desire for cultural assimilation by many American Jews will lead to their self-destruction, Danny advocates a more direct and violent approach in dealing with the "enemy. ... Full Review

In the end, the film's humor strikes a more authentic nerve than Bean's egregious flashback sequences and heavy-handed finale.....Despite its overwhelming sense of verisimilitude and powerhouse performances, the film is burdened by lecture..... ... Full Review

You just get the sense that what you're seeing is a very personal struggle in what will probably be one of the most powerful films of the year. The award-winning novelist had previously written the screenplays to such movies as "Internal Affairs" and the fantastic "Deep Cover. ... Full Review

American independent cinema can still be provocative.....Henry Bean's thoughtful screenplay provides no easy answers....The young actor is articulate and driven by demons as a budding neo-Nazi and commands the screen with his presence..... ... Full Review

Few doubt it is a good film. In the meantime, to its Sundance awards it has added Independent Spirit Awards for best screenplay and best first feature (both to director Henry Bean ), best actor ( Ryan Gosling ) and best supporting actress ( Summer Phoenix ). ... Full Review