MOVIE · 2001

The Believer

Drama98 min

Ryan Gosling is Daniel Balint, an intelligent, volatile neo-Nazi in New York who rises inside a skinhead group by turning anti-Semitic rhetoric into action. The secret at the center of his life is that Daniel was born Jewish, and the hate he directs at synagogues, Jewish classmates, and the people around him is bound up with his own rejected faith. Henry Bean’s film stays close to Daniel as his public fanaticism and private religious knowledge collide. Billy Zane, Theresa Russell, and Summer Phoenix are part of the world pressing in on him as his arguments, violence, and self-loathing become harder to separate.