Review

Review Date: 8-June-08
Spoiler Rating: Low
Juju Judgment: Junk

You Don't Mess with The Zohan (2008)

So remind me again why I ignored my inclination to avoid mass-market comedies and wasted money and time on You Don't Mess with The Zohan? It had something to do with the premise. I liked the thought of a top-notch Israeli assassin, played by a slimmed-down Adam Sandler, trying to trade Mideast violence for the joys of being a hairdresser. That is amusing, no? No indeed. It is far from amusing in this atrocious flick which appears to have been written by an 11-year-old with both ADHD and a piteously low IQ.

Half-formed ideas and rip-offs from other movies get jumbled together after Sandler's ex-agent, "The Zohan," fakes his death in Lebanon and heads to New York for a new life. He makes a few friends and is hired to sweep the floor of a salon owned by a gorgeous Palestinian woman (Emmanuelle Chriqui). Like Ice Cube in Barbershop, she is a spunky small business owner being leaned on by a greedy corporate magnate. Fortunately (?), The Zohan is willing and eager to have sex with all of her clients after he graduates to cutting hair, which fills their appointment book and makes the money roll in. Too bad that an Arab cab driver (Rob Schneider) recognizes him and alerts The Zohan's old rival (John Turturro) of his whereabouts.

What is really too bad is that the movie does not mine the humor behind a super-killer wanting to settle down with a pair of scissors and a jar of styling mousse. Instead it offers innumerable hummus jokes, intolerable minutes with Mariah Carey, an obsessive fascination with the stuffed crotch of Sandler's underwear, and cat-abuse gags, the last resort of the idiot who knows he isn't funny but desperately wishes he were. I did not need to mess with The Zohan. The people behind this dreck already did.

Copyright © 2008 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.