Zo-Kay

You Don't Mess With The Zohan is a movie I was sort of looking forward to mainly because the commercials always made me laugh. It's also a movie I was dreading because it's an Adam Sandler Movie. I've talked before about how there is a difference between The Adam Sandler Movie (a movie in which Adam Sandler is more or less in control of the script and the movie's content) and a movie that has Adam Sandler in it (in which Sandler is primarily an actor and most of the creative control lies with others). Spanglish is an excellent example of the latter. While still a comedy, it was more serious in its tone and presentation. In fact, Sandler's John Clasky character was actually more of a supporting character to Paz Vega's Flor Moreno*. An excellent example of the former is my favorite Adam Sandler movie, 50 First Dates. You may remember that as the movie where Drew Barrymore played a woman with no short term memory thus making it difficult for Sandler's character to win her love. In addition to often being quite funny, it was also often very touching. Mixed in with all this was a scene where a German she-male was vomited on by a walrus and approximately 8000 jokes about a guy whose testicles are shrinking due to steroid use. When that happens, you know you're in An Adam Sandler Movie and that Teh StoopiD has only just begun.

Zohan establishes very quickly that it is An Adam Sandler Movie. It opens on an Israeli beach that apparently has one of the most strongly enforced No Fat Chicks policies on the planet. In fact, they seem to have gone beyond that and only allow Maxim models. In the midst of this we meet Sandler's character Zohan, Israel's top counterterrorism agent. Just walking along the beach, we see that Zohan possesses super-human abilities just by the way he plays hacky-sack. We also get our first Adam Sandler Movie Moment when he catches the sack in his butt and shoots it high into the sky. Our next Adam Sandler Movie Moment comes when he and his buddy scoop up the 3 hottest women in Israel for a private beach party where the girls don't mind in the least that he grills fish stark naked, throws them around and, in a radical creative departure, catches one in his butt. At that moment, Zohan's army comrades land a helicopter on the beach to fetch him for a terrorist crisis that suddenly popped up and we get to see Zohan angrily pull the stained fish out of his butt, get dressed and disco dance his way onto the chopper.

We are then treated to an amusing collection of Jewish stereotypes including his commanding officer who passive-aggressively gets Zohan to agree to raid a Palestinian compound by himself by talking about the large civilian casualties that would occur if the army sent in a squadron of soldiers. Zohan then raids the compound where he almost floats to the roof, kicks through walls and catches bullets in midair before meeting his old nemesis, a Palestinian known simply as the Phantom (John Turturro). The Phantom seemingly kills Zohan, an opportunity that Zohan uses to disappear and sneak off to America where he feels he can fulfill his heart's desire, to be a hair stylist.

After getting laughed out of every large styling salon in New York, he winds up in a small shop run by, of all things, a Palestinian girl named Dalia (Emmanuelle Chriqui). Or, as I should say, the hottest Palestinian girl on the planet. Anyone who's ever seen a movie before knows that it will only be a matter of time before Zohan falls for her completely and wants to, shall we say, build a settlement in her territory. Until then, we get lots of Adam Sandler Movie Moments. The dumbest one is where he has endless sex with every one of the female clients. What elevates that from dumb to Adam Sandler Dumb is that he does so in a way that literally shakes the walls so that everyone else in the salon, including Dalia, knows exactly what he's doing. So, does Dalia ever take him off to the side and say, "Hey, I appreciate all the business you've been bringing and I don't want to tell you how to live, but what you've been doing is very rude and improper and has to stop," or, more likely, "WHAT IN ALLAH'S NAME DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING? IS THIS THE FIRST TIME YOU'VE EVER BEEN AROUND OTHER PEOPLE? GET THE HELL OUT!" Nope, she and the other stylists just smile and get back to work.

And so we come down to the main point: is Zohan worth seeing? I'm going to say yes, though barely. Ultimately, I feel that there is enough genuine humor to overcome the Adam Sandler silliness. Hell, for once even Rob Schneider, a staple in Adam Sandler Movies, made me laugh. He plays a a Palestinian immigrant who recognizes Zohan and tries to call Hezbollah's Help Line to find out what to do about it. So go ahead, see Don't Mess With The Zohan and rest assured that, when you're seeing something stupid that, as with all things, this too shall pass and the funny stuff will start again.

* Thank you, IMDB, for making me look like I have an excellent memory for character names and other cinematic trivia.

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