Everyone loves a good poop joke, and Adam Sandler is known
by many as the master of the art form. We’ve seen him range from classic fare
like “Happy Gilmore” and “Big Daddy” to the abortions that were “Little Nicky”
and “50 First Dates,” but his use of gratuitous slapstick and potty humor has
largely stayed the same. “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan” ups the
“Airplane”-esque sight gags to an oppressive level, sets Sandler and co. within
the sensitive confines of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and capitalizes on
every possible chance to deride Middle Eastern culture in tastelessly easy
ways.
It’s like that liberal
circle jerk “American Dreamz” from a few years back; both films are so
incompetent at the Chappelle technique of universal discrimination that they
just make the audience feel guilty.
Sandler’s Zohan is the ultimate Mossad agent, a superhuman
force in counterterrorism with a bulge that all the Israeli honeys love.
Secretly, he dreams of becoming a famous hairstylist who will one day use his
talent to make the whole world “silky smooth.” To escape all the fighting and
look for a better life in
Zohan fakes his death at the hands of his Hezbollah archrival, the Phantom,
played by John Turturro. Turturro’s character annoys with stilted one-liners
and cardboard characterization, so if you were expecting the second coming of
“Lebowski”’s Jesus, prepare for disappointment.
Once in
Zohan finds Palestinians and Israelis coexisting in relative peace, and even
befriends a Palestinian hairdresser named Dalia (Emmanuelle Chriqui), who
employs him at the salon and serves as the comedy’s weak love interest.
Finally, former-terrorist-turned-cabbie Salim (played by polarizing Rob
Schneider) spots the metrosex Zohan and vows to take revenge for that one time
in the desert when Zohan stole his goat (I’m not making this up). The film
closes with Israelis and Palestinians bonding over their own racial stereotypes
(hummus, disco dancing, bootleg electronics, more hummus) and joining forces to
defeat the real enemy, an American redneck named James (an oddly fitting role
for Dave Matthews).
Additional cringe-worthy cameos from John McEnroe, Chris
Rock and Mariah Carey come off as forced and studio-calculated. Having Zohan
wear Mariah T-shirts for the majority of the film initially seems like a
harmless character quirk, but actually turns out to be a grand marketing scheme
for the diva to instruct the audience, straight up, to buy her new album.
Although Sandler
penned the script with SNL writer Robert Smigel and comedy moneyhat Judd
Apatow, “Zohan” feels ’90s primitive when put up against recent genre hits like
“Superbad” and “Knocked Up.” It offers a few hilarious slow-mo montages of
geriatric sexual-innuendo-through-haircutting, some “Holy Grail” moments that
break the fourth wall of absurdity (i.e. using eyeglasses as a hummus spoon)
and proves that Sandler still has a talent for comedic timing, but we’ve been
watching the same movie every year since “Billy Madison” in ’95. June 6.
