Reviewed by Lamar Kukuk
8/22/08
We seem to be entering a
very strange and exciting time in the career of Adam Sandler. Already
working hard to refine his Saturday Night Live-honed acting skills
to the point where he can give a real performance, the reigning king of
lowbrow comic blockbusters has now made back-to-back movies that are (gasp)
“about” something. Big things, too. I
Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry attempted, with some success, to
generate some empathy on the gay marriage issue among a constituency unlikely
to have given it much thought. And now he's stepped into even stickier
territory, perhaps the world's single most divisive issue: the eternal
struggle between Israel and Palestine. OK, You Don't Mess With
the Zohan isn't exactly a thoughtful, dramatic examination of the issues,
and this gonzo, anything-goes comedy can be hit and miss. But it
also has a way of sneaking up on you, scores more satirical points than
you have any right to expect, and most shockingly of all, allows the former
Opera Man to make me believe in the crazy dreams of a commando who only
wants to be a hairdresser.
Zohan Dvir (Adam Sandler)
lives a life of cheerful debauchery on the beaches of Israel, but something
keeps getting in the way: he just happens to be an invincible Mossad
super-agent whose skills are always needed to defeat the latest scheme
of Palestinian terrorists like The Phantom (John Turturro). But no
sooner does he capture them than they're released in a hostage exchange,
and he feels that the war will never end. He confides in his parents
(Dina Doran & Shelley Berman): the mighty Zohan wants to stop
fighting, and live his dream of cutting and styling hair. Clutching
a 1987 Paul Mitchell style guide like the Bible, he finally decides he
will never be free unless he fakes his own death. And in an epic
battle with The Phantom, that's exactly what he does. Stowing away
in a crate with a couple dogs named Scrappy and Coco, he arrives in New
York City ready to walk into the Paul Mitchell Studio and get a job.
But he's laughed out with his strange manner, retro styles, and his alias,
Scrappy Coco. The only job he can find involves swallowing his pride
and agreeing to sweep up hair at the shop of Palestinian stylist Dalia
(Emmanuelle Chriqui). But soon opportunity knocks and Zohan gets
his chance to cut hair... and to show off his other talents as well, because
the libidinous agent sees nothing wrong with ending each cut with a quickie
in the back room. Soon, he's got old ladies lining up around the
block, and Dalia's struggling shop is a hit, much to the horror of the
landlord, Mr. Walbridge (Michael Buffer), who's trying to drive out all
the locals in this Israeli/Palestinian neighborhood (each group staying
on their side of the street, of course) so he can build the World's Greatest
Mall. Soon, Zohan can no longer deny his destiny: a cabbie
(Rob Schneider) he wronged back home identifies him and calls the Phantom
(who's built a fast food empire on having killed Zohan), while Walbridge
hires a racist goon (Dave Matthews) and his gang to incite a war between
the neighborhood's two factions. We know Zohan can wage war, but
can he find a way to make peace with his greatest enemy?
You Don't Mess With the
Zohan tells two overlapping stories with neither hesitation nor shame,
and when it works, there's a glory to how far off the board it's willing
to go. When it doesn't... ugh! Other than too many viewings
of Austin Powers sequels, I'm not sure why the movie feels the need
to have Zohan shag everything that moves: there's not one hairdressing-related
moment that's really funny, but the “sex with old ladies” stuff is doubly
groan-inducing. Surprisingly, what keeps the movie alive at the shop
is the purity with which Sandler enacts Zohan's crazy dream. He's
delusional, he's kinda violent, but damn, that guy sure wants to “make
the world silky-smooth”. The one area where the horny hairdresser
gags work is in the home of his first American friend, Michael (Nick Swardson),
who invites Zohan to live with him only to walk in over and over on him
in various compromising positions with his mother (Lanie Kazan).
Those scenes work because they actually have a punchline, Michael's ever-escalating
horror, rather than just expecting us to howl at the sight of “old ladies
getting it on” or our own discomfort (and it is formidable) with Sandler
in various states of undress.
But once you get past the
preliminaries, there's a lot to love in Zohan. It creates
a memorably crazy street full of shops like “Going Out of Business”, an
electronics store that's not actually going anywhere, but finds that banner
to be a good advertising tool. Its' collection of silly characters
nicely demonstrates that everybody's got a dream, and nobody's is fighting
an endless war. The Phantom's isn't even owning his fast food chain,
although it does have a wonderful set of TV ads. Strange as it may
seem, the storyline with Walbridge and his scheme actually illuminates
the Middle Eastern conflict pretty nicely: the people of both sides
get nothing out of fighting each other, but there are plenty of wealthy
third parties who've built their fortunes on keeping them at each other's
throats. The superspy action we see is positively nuts: from
disassembling the gun of a man shooting at him while he's holding it to
catching a bullet with his nostrils, there's pretty much nothing Zohan
can't do. I have to admit that some of the movie's ethnic humor went
over my head, but it sure does love its' hummus, the delicacy described
by one of Walbridge's henchmen as “a delicious, diarrhea-like substance”.
The cast is very effective,
starting with Sandler, who affects a nice comic Israeli accent and walks
a very effective line between buffoon and sympathetic character.
Turturro will go as far over the top as any role requires, and his Phantom
is a memorable combination of supervillain and huckster. Emmanuelle
Chriqui is sweet as the girl who improbably falls for Zohan. Schneider
is always best in roles where he's filled with impotent rage, and he's
a hoot as the vengeful cabbie Salim, who tries to exact terrorist revenge
against his foe, but can't get any help from the Hamas 800 number that's
down until the latest round of peace talks collapse.
But Zohan's most delightful
and remarkable performances come from its' unlikeliest cast members, led
by 63-year-old Buffer making his acting debut, at least if you don't count
performances as himself and “Ring Announcer”. And he is ready to
rumble, smoothly personifying the snarkily indifferent greed of the Trump-inspired
Walbridge, who never misses a chance to remind you that his girlfriend
(Nicole Bennett) is really hot. Matthews makes a hilarious racist
goon, with a fake mustache they probably sell in KKK catalogs. Perhaps
funniest of all is singer Mariah Carey, who plays herself in one of those
grand acts of character self-assassination I love. She's in town
to sing the National Anthem at a hacky sack tournament sponsored
by Walbridge, only to find Really Big Fans Phantom and Zohan having a would-be
epic battle in her dressing room. As depicted here, she's self-centered,
pretty dim, and really afraid of bees, but the movie's funniest notion
about her is that her job isn't so much to sing as it is to humor the advances
of a world full of lusty losers in order to sell them CDs. Like the
movie itself, her performance is totally shameless, and I loved it.
Finding some things “too
serious to be made fun of” is the same kind of thinking that gets people
into generational cycles of violence in the first place, and it's kinda
refreshing to see such a silly movie about a subject that's so serious.
You Don't Mess With the Zohan isn't going to bring peace to the
Middle East, or even a single street in New York City, but its' heart is
in the right place, and it's got some big laughs. Sandler might not
be the new Will Rogers, but relevance kinda suits him. |
