"The Zohan" is an elites Special Forces Agent for the Israeli Army. Disillusioned by the endless disruption to his life, he fakes his own death to escape to America and fulfill his dream of cutting hair. Will his enemies discover him and foil his bid for a normal life?
"You Don't Mess With The Zohan" is as puerile a comedy as you would expect from Adam Sandler. As per usual this is pure slapstick farce from start to finish with the jokes coming at a million miles a minute. Unfortunately, as with all of Sandler's films the success of these jokes is incredibly sporadic. I approach every Sandler film with the same degree of hope and despair. You know what is coming, tits and arse comedy in it's lowest form. However, sometimes Sandler is genius and other times you want to kill yourself. "Don't Mess With The Zohan" is in the latter category.
The film is an amalgamation of racist stereotypes and is an uncomfortable swipe at America's involvement in the Middle East. The slapstick nature of the conflict between Israel and Palestine in this movie is a little close to the bone at times but their shared hatred of America and the prejudices they share is apt and is one of few highlights of the film. Unfortunately, this film is the usual vehicle for Sandler's comedic one man show and this highlight is not capitalised upon.
As the misogynistic Zohan, Sandler is a ridiculous sex mad character that grates on me from beginning to end. The lack of depth to the character makes him distinctly unlikeable and Sandler's obsession with sex with old women is more often disturbing than funny. I like Sandler best when he plays more restrained parts as he does in films like "Spanglish" and "The Wedding Singer" but their is nothing restrained about his performance here. I suppose I should expect this but even die hard fans will struggle to enjoy his performance here. This is certainly no "Happy Gilmore". Sandler's nemesis "The Phantom" is also ridiculous and not at all funny. John Torturo is clearly playing the role for laughs but he does not get one funny line.
I also cannot understand Sandler's obsession with working with Rob Schneider in every film he does. The guy is just not funny and he hampers every film with his awful stereotypes and greasy manner. Once again Schneider gets a central role here and is out acted by a goat throughout the movie. The only saving grace is Emmanuelle Chriqui as Sandler's love interest Dalia. She at least gives the film some grace and subtlety.
"You Don't Mess With The Zohan" is a bad film even for Sandler who seems to go from genius to garbage with every release. There is nothing to laugh at, virtually no plot and every character is racist or sex mad. Add to this pointless cameos from Mariah Carey and John McEnroe who seem to miss entirely that Sandler is sending them up and what you have is the lamest slapstick comedy since...well Sandler's last lame slapstick comedy.