Nary has a summer passed by in the last decade or so without the world being “treated” to an Adam Sandler movie–usually a brainless affair aimed at the laughter of wide audiences–except for the sporadic foray into serious acting (see Punch Drunk Love, Spanglish). This summer’s Happy Madison production, You Don’t Mess With the Zohan, fits into the former category by virtue of the stupid title alone. Surprisingly, it’s not necessarily a bad thing this time around.
Let’s not kid ourselves here: this is still an Adam Sandler movie with sight gags, funny accents, Rob Schneider cameos and jokes that are so base, they make you feel dirty when you laugh at them. After several summers of box office domination by Judd Apatow’s slightly more cerebral, heartfelt yet crass comedies, Sandler decided to follow suit in the laziest way possible: by recruiting Apatow himself to co-write. The difference is slight, but notable, both in the area of the signature Apatow penis jokes and gags that are tighter than the usual Sandler movie.
Zohan, like its predecessors, still follows the standard Sandler comedy plot where he stars as some version of a hapless dude/fish-out-of-water trying to make it big in some hilariously esoteric area–wringing out said area’s limited comedic possibilities until it’s almost tiring–and in the process gets the girl. Zohan Dvir (Sandler), who dreams of becoming a hair stylist at the Paul Mitchell salon in New York, is the Israeli intelligence agent incarnation of this formula. He fakes his own death in order to pursue this ambition in perfect anonymity, becoming Scrappy Coco, the geriatric-loving gigolo/stylist of the lower-west side.
What works in this movie is the pure silliness of it all. It’s incredibly idiotic and the mention of the ongoing Israeli/Palestinian conflict is thankfully minor. There’s no grand, cheesy message here about possible ways to achieve peace, something you’d expect Sandler might attempt. Zohan coasts on its near-clever idiocy and Zoolander-type humour, with scenes like a star-studded hacky sack tournament (Mariah Carey, Chris Rock, John McEnroe and Dave Matthews as a red-neck, corporate hired terrorist, all make appearances), ridiculously choreographed fight sequences and a continuous dependence on poking fun at stereotypes. It all makes for a fairly fun, if not entirely funny, movie that isn’t a complete waste of time or money like some of Sandler’s past projects. As Adam Sandler comedies go, You Don’t Mess With the Zohan is a fairly solid and amusing piece of crap.