Starring: Adam Sandler, John Turturro, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Nick Swardson, Lainie Kazan, Ido Mosseri , Rob Schneider

Directed by: Dennis Dugan

Sony Pictures

The Official Site of You don’t Mess with The Zohan

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This may be an unfair comparison but when Steven Spielberg sets out to honor the memory and tradition of his people you get a completely different movie then when Adam Sandler does the same. Spielberg fills his shelf with statues through heart wrenching struggles and Israeli pride. Sandler’s love letter involves a humus gun and a penis that waves hello. On some degree though, that’s to be expected. No one is going into You don’t Mess With the Zohan, a movie about an Israeli counter terrorist who dreams of cutting and styling hair in America, is expecting an uplifting pride piece for Israelis everywhere. Sandler and company are not trying to change the world with Zohan, they’re just having a good time.

Zohan was co-written by Sandler,SNL and Late Night alum Robert Smigel, as well as the current comedy wonder boy Judd Apatow. All three proud Jewish sons that have given their people a hero, and a movie, worth looking up to. They’ve jam-packed this fish out of water adventure with one ridiculous prank after another so funny that you’ll wish you were Jewish just so you were in the loop. My people (The Irish) are hurting for a regional warrior. I blame the Leprechauns.

As funny as it is, there are moments where I worried that Zohan had gone too far. No time is wasted defining itself as a silly action comedy where serious matters can be taken lightly and the basic laws of physics are really more of a friendly suggestion. Almost immediately Zohan “jumps the shark�, but leaps back and forth over it so often that by the time we see our hero playing tug of war with a bull or a ping-pong match of death with a live grenade, you’re up to speed with what kind of ride this is going to be.

Sandler plays Zohan, the ultimate super spy. A perfect warrior in every way, other than the fact that all he really wants is to make people “silky smooth�. Big dreams of styling hair in America keep him awake at night weeping. I suppose it would be nice if he were weeping for the 2000-year struggle with the Palestinians that makes it necessary for him to continue fighting, but everyone needs a dream. And that’s hidden message number one.

It’s not so hidden actually. After faking his death and traveling to America, the land of opportunity, Zohan finds that following your heart’s desire is a lot more complicated than showing up and asking for the gig. He has to work his way up from the bottom, but his hard work ethic and over-charged libido become a quick hit with the old biddies that frequent the small neighborhood salon he volunteers at. Soon Zohan is the number one ticket in town and his helping to keep the small struggling salon afloat amidst some ridiculous property fight B-story. (Don’t worry. I’ll get to it eventually.)

Just as Zohan has finally realized his dream, Rob Schneider shows up and ruins everything (Just like in real life!!). Schneider plays an Arab cab driver that recognizes Zohan and decides to try and take out the legendary warrior on his own and claim the glory for himself.

In the comic I make a big stink about the possibility of Schneider or Sandler playing Palestinians but it’s really no big deal, especially for Schneider. He was Chinese in Chuck and Larry and retarded in The Waterboy, so he’s obviously very versatile.

Introducing the Palestinian threat brings about a natural conflict that could have become very awkward, but is dealt with in a very Happy Madison kind of way. At one point we see a collection of Israeli and Palestinian American’s coming head-to head. Eventually a bitter debate about politics quickly boils down to a conversation about which First Lady you would want to have sex with more. That never happens in Schindelr’s List, and Eleanor Roosevelt was SO fine!

The two sides soon realize that it is possible to coexist and disagree at the same time. That’s message number two that comes out when we realize everyone has a dream to follow. (Remember message number one?)

Just to make the whole “these people hate these people� thing extra complicated, they toss in a Palestinian love interest for Zohan played by Emmanuelle Chriqui whose long locks and tongue-tying accent make her stand out in an already impressive list of Sandler leading ladies. (For the record it goes: Barrymore, Beckinsale, Chriqui, Barrymore, Adams, Ryder, Tomei.) The love story is nice but the Middle Eastern Romeo and Juliet angle, (like message one and message two) takes a big backseat to the international hacky sack tournament that’s really a cover for a staged race war for land control storyline. Yeah… when you’ve got that kind of story to set up you tend to gloss over the lovey-dovey nonsense.

Things work out of course, because with Zohan a world has been created where most problems can be solved with groin thrusts haircuts. Zohan is silly but not completely devoid of the stuff that makes movies mean something. You can have that, not take it so seriously and still laugh your ass off at the same time. Even Spielberg would agree with that.

Rating: 7 out of 10 - Zohan is a return to form for Sandler who really became famous off of wacky over-the-top comedies just like this. I really enjoyed the emotional aspect of Click and it’s always great to see Sandler challenge what’s expected of him in movies like Reign Over Me, but I look at Zohan as a long overdue permission slip to go to an Adam Sandler movie and giggle your head off like an 8-year-old with a keg of Mr. Pibb. Welcome back, sir.

Despite what will more than likely be an abysmal DVD cover featuring splits and cut-offs, the flexibility and short shorts play much better when in context and are necessary parts in what turned out to be a wildly funny film. One I’m sure I’d enjoy again. I’ll have to make it my pet project over the next 6 months to create an alternative cover worthy of sitting between Deuce Bigalow 1 and 2. Or I could spend that time weeding out the terrible terrible movies I obviously have cluttering up my home.

This past weekend Phil, Irv and I attended Wizard World Philadelphia, a modest sized comic book convention that we get a table at every year because it’s right in our back yard. Low cost, easy to do, lots of fun. While there though I met a lot of readers that were surprised to see us. It made me realize that I’m sort of bad about letting you guys know what’s going on with the comics and us.

Let’s fix that. June is actually a busy month for conventions. Besides Philly we’ve got Anime Next the weekend of the 20th and then Wizard World Chicago the following week (June 26th-29th). Also if you’re walking around Mocca this Sunday you’ll probably see me and Yeo watching LucyLou from afar trying to figure out how she’s that good.

Anime Next came about sort of oddly. We’ve never done an Anime show before because we kind of assumed it just wasn’t our crowd. Steve Napierski actually tried to convince me that our “cute animals with violent weapons� would go over huge, but for some reason it just wasn’t even on our radar. At the end of May I was contacted by one of the promoters of Anime Next and he made it hard for us to say no. With everything they offered up front, oddly enough the biggest selling point turned out to be that it takes place like 30 minutes from my house. (Another easy show!) Then they dropped the bomb on me. I’ve been asked to participate in a few webcomic panels at the show, which should be a fine example of stammering and sweating. It’s weird because I always thought I would enjoy doing panels but now that I’ve been asked, I’m positively terrified. I hope I can hold my own. I’m sure it’ll go fine. If not… well I’m only 30 minutes from home.

I’ll be there all three days but on Friday I’ll be alone. If you stop by there’s probably a 57% chance that I’ll be shivering in the fetal position.

So that’s the big con news. Now you know. Go Joe. There’s some other comic stuff I should be telling you guys about but the big one I realized is that there’s a new Turtle vs Bunny arc going on right now that I almost never mention over here. It’s about 60 strips in, updates three times a week and is getting pretty crazy. I’m enjoying that series and I’m looking forward to rolling that storyline into the next reader interactive race. That’s an update for another time though.

Thanks so much for reading!