The Believer (film)

The Believer is a 2001 American drama film cowritten with Mark Jacobson and directed by Henry Bean. The film stars Ryan Gosling as Daniel Balint, a Jew who becomes a NeoNazi. It won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival and the Golden St. George at the 23rd Moscow International Film Festival.

Daniel Balint is a former Jewish yeshiva student, brilliant but troubled, who is now a fanatically violent NeoNazi in New York in his early 20s. As a child, he often challenged his teachers with unorthodox interpretations of scripture. He once argued that the Binding of Isaac was not about Abrahams faith but Gods power that God did not want Abraham to accomplish a particular task but instead asks unquestioning obedience, which Abraham refuses to give. He concluded that God is a bully.Daniel finds a meeting of fascists run by Curtis Zampf and Lina Moebius, where he also makes a connection with Linas daughter Carla. Daniel advocates killing Jews, and a banker named Manzetti in particular, but Curtis and Lina oppose harming Jews on practical if not moral grounds. Impressed with Daniels intelligence, Lina invites him to their camp retreat in the country. Afterward, Daniel and his fellow NeoNazi friends pick a fight with two AfricanAmerican men, get arrested, and are bailed out of jail by Carla. He spends the night with her but returns to the home of his ailing father. Daniel searches his Hebrew school notebooks and finds a semiautomatic pistol. He is harangued by his sister Linda for his Nazi beliefs, but she also urges him to stay and have Shabbat dinner with their father. The men watch television, which is forbidden, leading them to commiserate on the incomprehensibility of Jewish law. ........

Source: Wikipedia