Jesse Eisenberg stars in “Holy Rollers,” playing an ambitious young New York Hasidic man who is drawn into a drug smuggling ring. As unlikely as it sounds, this striking drama is based on true events from the 1990s.

It is a startling, fact-inspired story, a sincere film focused on a young man’s frustrations within his insulated community and his religious conflicts outside of it. Although the story’s premise has potential as another tale about the rise and fall of a drug kingpin, “Holy Rollers” is a more restrained and thoughtful drama, with its focus on religion, identity and temptation. Anyone expecting “Scarface” will be disappointed.

Eisenberg, the young actor who was so affecting in the indie film hit “The Squid and the Whale,” plays Sam Gold, a 20-year old from a poor Hasidic family in Brooklyn, hoping to become engaged to a young woman he spotted at his temple.

His family and his rabbi (Bern Cohen) approve of the match but her family seems reluctant. Sam is a good son who wants to comply with his father Mendel’s (Mark Ivanir) plan for him to become a rabbi. But Sam struggles in his studies, unlike his close friend and next-door neighbor Leon Zimmerman (Jason Fuchs).

While Sam does not have a gift for scholarship, he has a knack for business, which his father lacks. Mendel Gold is more interested in being well-liked in his community than in making enough money for his impoverished family, much to Sam’s frustration.

Sam attributes the reluctance of his would-be fiancee’s family to the engagement to his family’s poverty, and Sam is desperate to show them he can make money.

But how would this nice Jewish boy get involved with drugs? Next door neighbor Leon’s older brother Yosef (Justin Bartha), who has a strained relationship with his family, asks Sam if he would like to make some extra money. Sam is interested if wary but Josef assures him it is a simple job, he just brings back a package from Europe for an Israeli importer. Smoothly, Josef tells him it is legal but he would be carrying “medicine” from Europe that cannot be bought here, “to help people.”

The medicine is actually the trippy drug Estacsy and Yosef’s employer Jackie Solomon (Danny A. Abeckaser) is an Israeli-born drug dealer. Jackie likes to recruit young Hasidim as drug mules because they are regarded as above suspicion by airport screeners. All expenses would be paid, Sam would be put on a plane to Holland, put up in a hotel room and then be given a package to bring back. “Relax, mind your business and act Jewish,” he is told.

Sam is dubious but eager to make money if he is not really harming anyone. Since the drug dealer, an Israeli, and his girlfriend Rachel (Ari Graynor) are Jewish, Sam lulls himself into a false sense of safety. Although what Jackie is seems clear to us, Sam engages in some self-delusion and allows himself to be drawn in, where his instinct for business proves useful. Sam finds the world that Yosef, Jackie and Rachel occupy both frightening and seductive.

Making assumptions based on appearances is a running theme in director Kevin Asch’s debut feature film, which was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.

Eisenberg does an excellent job portraying the confused Sam, a sincere young man who starts out wanting to get married and to be a respected and successful in his community. Eisenberg captures his ambitions and frustrations brilliantly. Sam’s impatience and willingness to take shortcuts, and to delude himself about what is his really doing, lead him down this path. When he is paid for his first job, his first action is to buy his mother a new stove to replace the broken one she struggles with, but his generosity is met by suspicion from his father. The more time Sam spends with the drug dealers, the more he is drawn into their world and becomes confused about who he is.

While the film is very sincere and works well dramatically, “Holy Rollers” is a fictional film, not a documentary. The film is marred by a number of glaring factual inaccuracies about the community, making one wish the director had hired a Hasidic consultant for guidance. While these errors distract, even the film’s detractors acknowledge its ability accurately to capture the frustrations facing young men in this community.

Despite its shortcomings, this well-acted, thoughtful, true-story film is a cautionary tale well worth a look.

“Holy Rollers” opens Friday, June 18, at the Tivoli Theater.