In 1998 Hasidic New York teen Sam Gold (Jesse Eisenberg) got involved in a drugs ring recruiting Orthodox Jews as drugs mules, piously passing through US customs with bags, hats and coats rammed with ecstasy tablets.
He was hugely successful, flooding the East coast with E until customs stepped up their game – something Kevin Asch’s diverting but slight film needs to do to be more than yet another drugs rise-and-fall tale.
While Justin Bartha entertains as a not-so-secular Jew and Asch conveys a tangible sense of time and place, we have seen this all before; from Jesse Eisenberg’s trademark jitters and speedy speech to the inevitable tragic story arc and the morphing of smalltime dabbler to swaggering kingpin, undone by over-confidence. Oy vey.
