You Don’t Mess with the Zohan
I have a confession to make. I actually quite like Adam Sandler and his comedies. I wasn’t a big fan of Waterboy and Little Nicky, and I hated the mawkish Click, but The Wedding Singer and 50 First Dates are two of my favourite romantic comedies. And Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison are just silly, harmless fun.
You Don’t Mess with the Zohan is something of a throwback to the Happy Gilmore days. It could just be the character he’s playing – a super-cool, always confident Israeli counter-terrorist – but Sandler doesn’t seem to be straining to be funny. He’s a relaxed presence around which the action takes place.
You also have to give Sandler credit for having the guts to make a comedy about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which so easily stirs up strong emotions whenever it’s discussed. While You Don’t Mess with the Zohan offers no solution to overcoming the decades of hate, the film makes a great deal of effort to highlight the similarities between the 2 groups – such as a shared love of Euro dance-pop and Mariah Carey. In You Don’t Mess with the Zohan, everyone is fair game for a laugh.
Obviously the film generates a lot of its humour through the use of clichés and stereotypes. Israelis, when they aren’t running dodgy electronics stores, smother everything, and I mean everything, with hummus. And a trio of incompetent Palestinians (headed by Rob Schneider) call the Hezbollah hotline for bomb-making advice as they attempt to capture Zohan.
You Don’t Mess with the Zohan is definitely stronger in its first half, as Zohan hunts down Palestinian terrorist, The Phantom (John Turturro). These scenes are utterly ridiculous – the Phantom runs upside down on ceilings and Zohan catches bullets in his nostrils – but if you suspend your disbelief and go with the silliness, it’s a lot of fun.
Frankly I would have been happy if a good portion of the action had been set in the Middle East, but it isn’t long before Zohan fakes his death and relocates to New York so that he can anonymously pursue his ambition of becoming a hair stylist. Again, these early scenes, with their flamboyant fish-out-of-water emphasis, include a number of laugh-out-loud moments.
However, once Zohan takes a job in a struggling Palestinian-owned hair salon, the film loses some of its comedic momentum. A romance is developed, a greedy developer emerges as the main villain, and the film starts to rely a little too heavily on a running gag that involves “old lady sex”. I have little doubt this sexually crude humour is related to the involvement of Knocked Up and 40 Year Old Virgin writer Judd Apatow, who shares scripting duties with Sandler here.
So, yes, You Don’t Mess with the Zohan does grow a bit weak and overblown towards the end, as most Sandler comedies do in their attempt to reach a satisfying conclusion. However, the film actually mixes some wit with the silliness, and for the majority of its 113 minute running time, I was chuckling along quite happily. If you don't get all emotionally charged over the thought of poking fun at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, You Don't Mess with the Zohan is worth checking out.
You Don’t Mess with the Zohan is something of a throwback to the Happy Gilmore days. It could just be the character he’s playing – a super-cool, always confident Israeli counter-terrorist – but Sandler doesn’t seem to be straining to be funny. He’s a relaxed presence around which the action takes place.
You also have to give Sandler credit for having the guts to make a comedy about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which so easily stirs up strong emotions whenever it’s discussed. While You Don’t Mess with the Zohan offers no solution to overcoming the decades of hate, the film makes a great deal of effort to highlight the similarities between the 2 groups – such as a shared love of Euro dance-pop and Mariah Carey. In You Don’t Mess with the Zohan, everyone is fair game for a laugh.
Obviously the film generates a lot of its humour through the use of clichés and stereotypes. Israelis, when they aren’t running dodgy electronics stores, smother everything, and I mean everything, with hummus. And a trio of incompetent Palestinians (headed by Rob Schneider) call the Hezbollah hotline for bomb-making advice as they attempt to capture Zohan.
You Don’t Mess with the Zohan is definitely stronger in its first half, as Zohan hunts down Palestinian terrorist, The Phantom (John Turturro). These scenes are utterly ridiculous – the Phantom runs upside down on ceilings and Zohan catches bullets in his nostrils – but if you suspend your disbelief and go with the silliness, it’s a lot of fun.
Frankly I would have been happy if a good portion of the action had been set in the Middle East, but it isn’t long before Zohan fakes his death and relocates to New York so that he can anonymously pursue his ambition of becoming a hair stylist. Again, these early scenes, with their flamboyant fish-out-of-water emphasis, include a number of laugh-out-loud moments.
However, once Zohan takes a job in a struggling Palestinian-owned hair salon, the film loses some of its comedic momentum. A romance is developed, a greedy developer emerges as the main villain, and the film starts to rely a little too heavily on a running gag that involves “old lady sex”. I have little doubt this sexually crude humour is related to the involvement of Knocked Up and 40 Year Old Virgin writer Judd Apatow, who shares scripting duties with Sandler here.
So, yes, You Don’t Mess with the Zohan does grow a bit weak and overblown towards the end, as most Sandler comedies do in their attempt to reach a satisfying conclusion. However, the film actually mixes some wit with the silliness, and for the majority of its 113 minute running time, I was chuckling along quite happily. If you don't get all emotionally charged over the thought of poking fun at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, You Don't Mess with the Zohan is worth checking out.
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