Boring, stereotyped and oversexed

Apparently I didn't get it, since all the other reviews are so glowing. Personally, I found "The Believer" to be boring, stereotyped and incomprehensible. A couple of bizarre sex scenes have been thrown in for good measure, naturally starring a twenty-something woman.

The main character, one Daniel Baliant, is a self-hating Orthodox Jew who becomes a neo-Nazi. All the usual Nazi stereotypes are there: skinheads, the fight between Daniel and The Big Tattooed Guy at the secret Nazi camp, the fat stupid Nazi, the crazy paranoid Nazi, etc. There is even a computer nerd Nazi. Since Daniel is an educated intellectual type of person, it's unclear why he would hang out with underclass skinheads of this sort. Nor is it clear why the "respectable" fascist front group recruits a crazy skinhead and suspected terrorist as a fund-raising speaker. In other words: the plot is very illogical! And no, it's not *really* based on a true story. Finally, the anti-Semitic speeches of the main character are meaningless rants. I fail to see why other customer reviewers found them so disturbing. Neither intellectual nor underclass Nazis sound like this.

Occasionally, "The Believer" does hint at a deeper message: Baliant seems to be a sceptic or atheist who argued with his Jewish teachers already in school, he seems to reject Judaism because the Jews went like lambs to the slaughter during the Holocaust, hence proving their weakness, and there are some kind of Kabbalistic hints which I didn't understand. There is also a tension between Danny and his equally Nazi girlfriend, who seems to be fascinated by Judaism and perhaps thinks of converting. However, the movie never really follows up on any of this. The end is also inconclusive. Does God forgive Danny and take him to Heaven? Does he end up in Hell? Is the message really atheist? No idea.

Maybe people who studied the Zohar for twenty years can grasp the esoteric message of "The Believer". I didn't. I was just bored.

PS. What *is* the difference between a kadish and a kiddush?