It’s True, Too Much Messing With “The Zohan” Is Not Good

The first thing to take away from “You Don’t Mess With The Zohan” is that if you can’t make fun of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, well, what can you make fun of? Actually, the majority of the stereotyping humor in this movie works well and is pretty clever. Sure, it’s easy to make fun of certain stereotypes (accents, skin tone, etc.) so it’s not exactly smart humor. However, there is some Mel Brooks-ish politically incorrect humor and it is the best parts of the movie…unfortunately, some of the other jokes are either too gross or just not funny.

Adam Sandler plays “The Zohan”, an Israeli assassin. The movie starts on a beach in Israel and Zohan is more of an icon than a killer. He parties on the beach with women in bikinis and even when he shows up men in front of these women, they are left to only high five The Zohan and admire him as well. It’s actually quite funny to think that in Israel, their pop stars are government assassins. It’s really an inspired idea.

Of course, as we all know from the bombardment of commercials, The Zohan really wants to become a hairdresser. In fact, he clings to his Paul Mitchell style book from the 1980s as he cries himself to sleep at night. Alas, he cannot quit the Army due to his feeling of obligation to kill Palestinians.

The Zohan has an arch-enemy terrorist called The Phantom, played completely over-the-top and smartly by John Turturro. After a hilarious action sequence, The Phantom believes that he has finally killed The Zohan, who instead uses this as an opportunity to escape to New York City and pursue his dreams of making the world “silky and smooth”.

Here is where the wheels fall off a bit. Zohan adopts the name Scrappy Coco and meets a few people, most notably fellow Israeli Oori who recognizes him but promises to keep his identity secret. Oori gets Zohan a job at a salon owned by Dalia (Emmanuelle Chriqui) who, in true Sandler movie fashion, will inevitably become The Zohan’s love interest. Eventually, he begins cutting hair and having sex with his clients, who happen to be older ladies. Sure, it’s funny at first but eventually, it just gets gross.

Another big problem here is the weak commentary attempt regarding the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Dalia is Palestinian and there are numerous businesses in the neighborhood that are owned by both sides. The Zohan gets over his prior Palestinian hatred quite quickly and it seems like it is mainly due to the fact that Dalia is hot. What could have been a funny commentary on a bad situation is kind of just paid lip service. It is then quickly forgotten about and both sides come together in the end to fight an even greater enemy, the rich, white land developer played by boxing announcer Michael Buffer.

Don’t get me wrong here, “The Zohan” is very funny. The romance is contrived, the social commentary is weak, and it gets a bit gross to hear The Zohan constantly talk about his “wetting his shtizel”. However, it is Sandler and somehow, he sucks you in and makes you laugh. There are plenty of people who hate his movies but I don’t see how. It’s impossible to dislike Adam Sandler. The movie also features numerous cameos and that makes for even bigger laughs…on a few occasions.

This is one of the funnier Sandler movies in years. It is easily better than the awful “Click” and “Mr. Deeds”. It is right on-par with “Anger Management”. It’s got some big time laughs and some big time swing and misses. Oddly enough, a large complaint of Sandler movies is that they play to stupid people. There are a bunch of jokes that an idiot won’t get with this one unless they are somewhat aware of Israeli-Palestinian history. You don’t have to be an expert on the subject but you have to know a bit about it or else those jokes go right over your head.

The biggest shock about the entire movie is that it received a PG-13 rating. There are a ton of sexual innuendos in here and some fairly graphic sight gags. This is not one for the entire family.