by Erik M. Dell

Created on: July 10, 2008   Last Updated: August 21, 2009

Adam Sandler has been in funny movies before. His production company has made funny movies. However, this latest stinker from Happy Madison productions can hardly be classifed as a comedy. For those of you who don't know, Happy Madison productions is Adam Sandler's production company that is responsible for his latest flick, You Don't Mess With the Zohan.

The movie tries to hard to follow up on Jewish sterotypes. From the excessive use of hummus to the addiction of an Isralei orange soda. Zohan feels like a short film that somehow found production money to drag the joke out to an agonizing feature length. I lost interest in who did what and who was chasing who about 20 minutes into the flick. Not a good sign for a movie I now regret paying admission for.

Zohan is the name of the main character in the movie. He is an Israeli Special Forces soldier fighting for his country. Zohan is the best-trained killer in the world but he has a yearning for a more complete life. He wants to style hair. But people just laugh (including his parents) at his ambitions.

This leads Zohan on a dangerous raid to stop the criminal mastermind The Phantom (played by an obviously bored John Tuturro). During the minutes long fight between the two, Zohan manages to fake his death, allowing him to move to New York City to prepare for his life's calling, a hair stylist.

The rest of the movie follows Zohan as he becomes a hair stylist and simultaneously battles the baddies that want him dead. This movie could have made a great short on comedy central but the almost two hours (113 minutes) seems like an eternity as we go from one humus joke to the next.

Besides not being very funny the movie seems to give Sandler a free pass to make fun of Jewish people (presumably because he is Jewish). The jokes run old fast and the movie is definitely not recommended for children under thirteen.

There are so many references to sex it borders on an R rating. The only thing missing to condone that R rating is the nudity. Zohan services all his clients with more than a haircut, in fact that is why he is so popular. That is until he finds true love, he falls head over heals for his boss. This causes the mighty Zohan to rethink his promiscuity. No longer is every woman for Zohan.

During his pursuit of true love he faces off against The Phantom again and they become brother in laws after a rather ridiculous face off. For most of the movie the jokes and one-liners seemed forced and not natural. Did I mention the hummus remarks? How many times can you put hummus on something? That is a trick question because if you are Jewish it goes on everything, at least according to this movie.

The movie was not all bad; the first fifteen minutes were semi-entertaining. After that however, this movie should have been straight to DVD or even a Saturday Night Live skit. Generally speaking this is one of those movies that you wished you got your two hours back. Then again maybe I was not the target audience. If you are a male between the ages of 13-17 you may enjoy this movie and all it has to offer.

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