Shmuel, competently portrayed by Jesse Eisenberg, works in his father’s fabric shop. He is under parental pressure to become a rabbi and get married. Shmuel’s friend, Yosef, convinces him there is easy money to be made in smuggling “medicine” to people in need. Being naive and eager to make “some extra gelt,”

Shmuel buys into his cock-and-bull story and becomes a “mule,” an unwitting accomplice in the illegal trade in ecstasy.

Jackie (Danny Abeckaser), the mercurial Israeli American drug dealer who runs the drug ring, is only too happy to recruit chassidic Jews as smugglers. U.S. custom agents do not suspect them.

As expected, Shmuel encounters no problems smuggling the pills on flights to Amsterdam. For each trip, he is paid $1,500, plus expenses.

On these trips, he is exposed to the hedonism of the secular world: loose women, nightclubs and porn films.

Shmuel eventually learns the true nature of Jackie’s business, but instead of turning back from the abyss, he carries on, swept away by temptations. In the process, he gradually moves away from his traditional religious lifestyle and alienates his family.

Holy Rollers, shot on location in Williamsburg, manages to evoke the timeless rhythms and nuances of Chassidism through such core values as the importance of family and tradition and the respect for authority.

Nonetheless, Holy Rollers is a plodding film, virtually bereft of tension and the frisson of excitement. Everything seems so pre-ordained and predictable.

Nor, with the exception of Shmuel and his explosive father (Mark Ivanir), are the characters even remotely compelling. There is something wooden in their respective personalities. They seem lifeless.

It’s a pity, since Holy Rollers brims with considerable potential.