IslandGuru Who payed the critics
Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.
Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable
Diana This movie was a complete disappointment. I happen to like Gosling as an actor, and that was the reason I watched it. But, about half-way through the movie you get what this movie is all about. It's a Jewish propaganda film, and not even a good one. Gosling plays a rebellious man who renounces his Jewish heritage early in life. Rejecting the shame of Jewish oppression, he goes to the other extreme and becomes a Nazi skin head, bullying blacks, Jews, etc. But then half-way into the movie he starts to embrace the "Jew" inside, and realizes that he can't keep his "Jewness" contained, kind of like "The Incredible Hulk". It's a weird premise for a story. It would have been interesting except that there are so many inconsistencies in the movie. And, the perverted sex in the movie just leaves you feeling dirty after watching this trash. Don't waste your time or money.
CinemaClown Inspired by the true life story of Daniel Burros, The Believer is a thought provoking, hard-hitting, powerfully disturbing yet profoundly moving tale starring Ryan Gosling in one of his earliest & most electrifying roles and despite its provocative subject manner, is a heartbreaking experience at the same time.Set in New York City, the story of The Believer concerns Daniel Balint; a Neo-Nazi skinhead with very strong anti-Semitic feelings despite having a Jewish background himself. The plot presents him as a morally confused individual who constantly finds himself torn between his beliefs & his heritage before being exposed by a journalist.Finely directed & nicely written, the film is unflinching with its content & is often a tough sit at times but a rewarding experience nonetheless. The technical aspects don't add much to the story for the entire narrative is mainly driven by Ryan Gosling's explosive performance as the self- hating Jew & still remains one of his best works to date.On an overall scale, covering the themes of religion, hate & self-loathing, The Believer is a fiercely crafted & steadily paced drama that's much worthy of a wider audience, is a fascinating but somewhat underdeveloped study of a troubled character, and benefits greatly from Gosling's commanding screen presence & show-stealing performance.
Rachel Filmer This film was powerful and compelling, but the overwhelming feeling was that it's incomplete in many aspects. I dislike films that spoon-fed the audience and telegraph their punches, but there were so many elements that needed further exploration.For example, the character of Carla left me feeling disturbed, not because of her behaviour but because her character was so under-developed. All we know of her background is that her father is a suicidal inmate of a mental institution and that she is sleeping with her mother's boyfriend. Why is this girl so damaged? Her behaviour is alarming - as a viewer, I need something in order to see her as a person rather than a freakish collection of traits. Daniel wants to save her life desperately in the end - why? The film does not show there to be any genuine connection between the two of them - it seems she's increasingly seduced by Judaism and he's increasingly disinterested in her.This flaw is present in every aspect of the film - we see Danny as perhaps a 13 year old intelligent student with controversial thoughts on Judaism, and next as a twenty-something neo-nazi. Why? Perhaps the writer/director could say that it's more interesting to leave this open but to me this is a cop-out since it's a difficult journey to chart in such a short time. I believe this arc is more than possible, but the details of his journey are important. Perhaps they could explain away other flaws: such as why he is willing to blow up a synagogue but cries when his fellow Nazis desecrate the Torah. There are issues like this throughout - he is clearly conflicted, but neither the writing nor the direction let us in to his mind.One thing that is clear throughout is that Judaism is deeply entrenched within him - his hatred and anger is towards the Jewish people for what he perceives to be their weakness. From the start of the film, he is desperate for them to fight back, to take a stand against their repeated and constant persecution. His desire to kill a Jew is another interesting point - does he want to kill Jews or put them into a scenario where they can fight back? It's interesting that he sees them as weak when the Jews within the film are frequently portrayed as being strong for precisely the same reasons, especially in the scene with the holocaust survivors. This scene, along with the opening and the initial synagogue scene were enormously unsettling: the film provoked a strong physical reaction in me, leaving me sickened by much of the dialogue and action. However, I did not feel mentally challenged as, without elaborating on many important issues, it felt somehow vacuous. The ending fulfils two of Danny's prophecies: that he will kill a Jew, and that he will kill himself if his background is publicly revealed. Danny kills only himself and directs his hatred to its ultimate source: himself. This would be far more powerful if we understood his reasons for hating his religion and himself. As it stands, the only reason I felt anything was Gosling's exceptional performance which manages to strike a balance between vitriol and deep sadness.I can only conclude, or hope, that the film has been heavily cut. The meat of an excellent film is here, but it's missing the skeleton that would make it great. There are many comparisons here to American History X - The Believer is perhaps a more honest, and certainly a more complex, film in that it avoids the easy resolution (Danny does not reject his entire ideology but succumbs to his own confusion). However, it's not the better film - this is a shame, as it could have been, with improvements to the script. Gosling's performance is powerful and believable, the content is intelligent and thoroughly researched, the outlook is risky and unflinching. The problem is, we don't ever get to really understand the protagonist as we must in order to be deeply affected.Therefore, this film - which could have been a 10 with some attention - barely scrapes a 6, and I'd say Gosling is responsible for the majority of that, alongside an interesting premise and some excellent, highly intelligent dialogue. It's definitely worth watching, but be prepared for some problems.
yiorgos78 When the theme of a movie is neo-Nazis and how they treat other people, especially Jews, you can't help but comparing it to "american history X". So as the film started I began to compare the two movies, but felt that it wasn't fair and it would bias my opinion, so i stopped after 10 minutes and gave it a chance to stand on its own.It just can't.How is it that a Nazi is a Jew, but he's conflicted about it? And lets say i buy that;from the middle and forward the movie became so flat without the smallest effort to give us a peak of this confliction. After the film ended i felt i took a trip to endless nothingness!Total waste of time.
