You Dont Mess With the Zohan (Columbia Pictures)
The Zohan Messed Up
There have been several Adam Sandler movies I have liked, but there have been more that I havent. You Dont Mess With the Zohan falls squarely in the dont like box. It isnt just that it is a stupid movie full of extreme characters who never win us over. Or that most of the jokes are crude and disgusting. It isnt even that Adam Sandler cant act and Rob Schneider is worse than him. Its that there is nothing to balance out these negatives so the movie goes downhill fast.
The Zohan (Sandler) is an unbelievable Israeli Mossad agent. He can stop bullets with his nose, scale buildings with a few leaps, and break down a machine gun by waving his hands. He is the absolute best at what he does, but he doesnt want to do it any more. He wants to go to America and be a hair stylist.
He fakes his death and takes off for the USA. There he gets a job at a shop operated by a Palestinian woman named Dalia (Emmanuelle Chriqui). He doesnt tell her his background but rather adopts the name of Scrappy Coco. He then proceeds to stun the hair styling world by attracting hordes of middle-aged women who want his talents cutting hair and in the sex department.
All of this is going fine until his arch-enemy The Phantom (John Turturro) shows up. Now there is going to be another battle. Zohan wants to be left alone to cut his hair but they keep drawing him back in.
All of this is told in a way that is boring and uninteresting. Sandler adopts a strong Israeli accent that is barely understandable. He also plays up the cruder aspects of his character with prolonged pelvis thrusting and unfettered sexual innuendoes. It seems his character wants to give his sexual abilities to mostly older women who are portrayed as starving for male affection. Poor Lainie Kazan plays the mother of a man who befriends Zohan and she gets caught up in his sexual proclivities, much to her sons and our embarrassment.
There is a half-hearted effort to bring a plea for peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians, but with so much garbage on the screen this message gets lost. Still making this plea for peace is an asset.
Sandler is caught up in a one joke film. It goes on forever and there are no side characters who can or will make it any more amusing. The movie is Sandler, Sandler, Sandler and it gets boring, boring, boring.
The film is rated PG-13 (go figure) for violence, nudity, sexual situations and profanity.
The movie appeals to your baser instincts and if you dont like crude material you are out of luck. Sandler is a talented man but that talent is not on display in this film. You get to see a lot of Adam Sandler, maybe more than you want to see. But his talent as a comedian is not on view.
I scored You Dont Mess With the Zohan a messed up 3 out of 10.
