You Don’t Mess with the Zohan
The new Adam Sandler movie contains a running gag about sex with elderly women, Rob Schneider doing another one of his noxious ethnic stereotypes and a mild strain of Sandler’s recurring homophobia. Nonetheless, “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan” gives off a sunny, even innocuous vibe. It’s goofy and zany and slap-happy. Sandler plays a sex-crazed Israeli commando who dreams of retiring from the military to become a hairstylist. He stows away to New York, where he lands a job at a ragtag salon run by a fetching Palestinian woman. Sandler keeps the Israeli accent more or less consistent and shows genuine affection for the quirks of Middle Eastern pop culture, from hacky-sack to bizarre soft drinks to cutoff jeans shorts on men. While Sandler has shown an adventurous streak in recent years, he tends to keep the comedy crude and broad when he works under the banner of his production company, Happy Madison. “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan,” which he co-wrote, maintains that tradition, but it’s not afraid to take the target audience out of its comfort zone with jokes not everyone’s going to get. Sandler also shows a burgeoning political consciousness. He promotes peace and tolerance by depicting Jews and Arabs as happily coexisting on a studio mockup of a Manhattan block that’s about as gritty and realistic as Sesame Street. “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan” is a timely valentine to America the melting pot, a country whose strength and character come from its vibrant mixture of cultures. All that, and sometimes it’s even funny, too.
LISTEN: You Don’t Mess with the Zohan
Adam Sandler is classic in his own way, though he tends to do his best work when he stays casual, not trying too hard to be funny or deep, etc.
patrick
1 Jul 08 at 6:05 pm