U Don 39;t Mess With The Zohan
Heli Whetzel
You Don't Mess with the Zohan is a 2008 American satirical action comedy film directed by Dennis Dugan; written by Adam Sandler, Robert Smigel, and Judd Apatow; produced by Sandler and Jack Giarraputo; and starring Adam Sandler, John Turturro, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Nick Swardson, Lainie Kazan, and Rob Schneider with supporting roles by Kevin Nealon, Ido Mosseri, Dave Matthews, Michael Buffer, Charlotte Rae, Sayed Badreya, and Daoud Heidami.
It is the fourth film to include a collaboration of Sandler as actor and Dugan as director. The film tells the story of an Israeli super soldier and counter-terrorist commando who fakes his own death to pursue his dream of becoming a hairstylist in the United States while contending with a crooked businessman, a superhuman terrorist arch-rival, and the grudge of a certain taxi driver.
Produced by Happy Madison Productions, You Don't Mess with the Zohan was released by Columbia Pictures in the United States on June 6, 2008. Despite the film's mixed reviews, it was a box office success, grossing $204.3 million worldwide from a $90 million budget.[2]
Zohanele "Zohan" Dvir is an Israeli counter-terrorist commando reputed for his promiscuity and superhuman traits. Despite his success, he is tired of Israel's everlasting conflict; he dreams of leaving the military to become a hairstylist for John Paul Mitchell Systems in the United States, but his parents disapprove of him.
He is tasked with capturing his long-time arch-rival, Fatoush "Phantom" Hakbarah, a Palestinian militant who also possesses superhuman traits. After engaging Phantom in a fight, Zohan fakes his own death and subsequently smuggles himself to New York City. Phantom's supposed success in killing Zohan garners him much fame across the Arab world, leading him to open the "Phantom Muchentuchen" restaurant chain.
After arriving, Zohan immediately seeks a job at the local Paul Mitchell salon, but is turned down. Later, Zohan witnesses a traffic collision involving two motorists and a cyclist named Michael. One of the motorists starts bullying Michael and yells anti-Arab slurs at Zohan, who promptly beats him up. Michael subsequently befriends Zohan and takes him to his apartment, where he lives with his mother Gail.
Zohan encounters a fellow Israeli immigrant, Oori. He recognizes Zohan and vows to keep his true identity a secret before bringing him to an area in Lower Manhattan predominantly populated by other Middle Eastern immigrants, including Israeli Americans and Palestinian Americans.
At Oori's suggestion, Zohan attempts to secure a job at the struggling salon of a Palestinian woman named Dalia. Because he lacks experience, she only allows Zohan to sweep the salon's floors and he will not receive any pay because her salon is facing financial difficulties. When a stylist unexpectedly quits, one of the customers asks Zohan to cut her hair, and he accepts. Zohan's reputation rapidly spreads, causing Dalia's business to prosper. Dalia makes her rent payments in full, upsetting a corporate businessman, Grant Walbridge, who has been trying to buy out all the local tenants to build a mall.
Zohan is identified by a Palestinian-American taxi driver, Salim, who recognizes him. He meets with his friends Hamdi and Nasi, convincing them to help him kill Zohan. After unsuccessfully attempting to contact Hezbollah, Salim contacts Phantom in Amman, Jordan. He threatens to publicly disclose the truth about Zohan being alive, but Phantom makes a deal with him and prepares to find Zohan himself.
Meanwhile, Zohan has fallen in love with Dalia, but she rejects Zohan because of his military service. Zohan decides to quit, hoping to keep her safe from any inter-ethnic strife. He later confronts Phantom in a championship Hacky Sack game sponsored by Walbridge. However, the confrontation is cut short when he learns that the Middle Eastern neighborhood is being attacked by unknown assailants.
As their businesses burn, Zohan calms the Israelis and the Palestinians, as both sides are blaming each other for the violence. When Phantom appears, he confronts Zohan, who refuses to fight after being deeply inspired by Dalia's pacifism. Dalia then discloses that she is Phantom's sister and convinces her brother to cooperate with Zohan against the arsonists, who are revealed to be a group of white supremacists on Walbridge's payroll. The Phantom works with Zohan to save the block. The arsonists are defeated, and Walbridge is arrested by the police; however, the overexcited Phantom accidentally destroys all the remaining shops with his superhuman screams.
With the Israelis and Palestinians now working together, the block is rebuilt and transformed into a collectively-owned mall. Zohan and Dalia, having now married, open a beauty salon together. Zohan's parents visit from Israel and approve of his new job and lifestyle.
Sandler, Robert Smigel, and Judd Apatow wrote the first draft of the script in 2000, but the movie was delayed after the events of 9/11 because those involved felt that the subject would be too sensitive. Apatow left the project after the first draft in 2000 to work on his show Undeclared and had, for the most part, not been involved in the project since.[3] The film is based in part on the story of Nezi Arbib, an Israeli soldier who after his service moved to southern California and opened a hair salon. Sandler trained with Arbib and his brothers, also former soldiers, for two weeks to learn hairstyling and work with clients.[4]
The movie features elements that first appeared in the SNL sketches "Sabra Shopping Network" and "Sabra Price Is Right", which starred Tom Hanks and were written by Robert Smigel. They originated lines such as 'Sony guts' and 'Disco, Disco, good, good'. The first sketch is also notable for featuring one of Adam Sandler's first uncredited television appearances while the second featured Sandler, Schneider, Smigel and Kevin Nealon in supporting parts. Robert Smigel worked with Sandler on past films including Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, and Little Nicky, but this was the first time in which he was credited for helping to write the script. He was an executive producer on the film which allowed him to further contribute to the movie's comedic sensibility.[5]
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz commented that the movie was known in Hollywood circles as "the Israeli movie". Haaretz noted that while "Israeli actors were rushing to audition [for the movie]," the response among Arab actors was far from enthusiastic.[5] Emmanuelle Chriqui, who played Zohan's Palestinian love interest, was raised as an Orthodox Jew.[6] The film poked fun at the popularity of hummus in Israeli culture. In the movie, characters used it to brush their teeth and as a method to douse the flames of a fire,[7][8] as well as a hair care product.[9]
Rupert Gregson-Williams composed the film's score, which he recorded with the Hollywood Studio Symphony at the Sony Scoring Stage in April 2008.[10] The soundtrack contains many songs in Hebrew, mostly by the popular Israeli band Hadag Nahash, the psychedelic trance duo Infected Mushroom, and Dana International. The film features "Strip" by Adam Ant, "Look on the Floor (Hypnotic Tango) (Angel City Remix)" by Bananarama, the Ace of Base songs "Hallo Hallo" and "Beautiful Life", the Rockwell song Somebody's Watching Me and Mariah Carey songs "Fantasy" and "I'll Be Lovin' U Long Time".
The soundtrack contains (near the end) music re-arranged for the movie by Julius Dobos, based on the song "Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy Aaja" from the Bollywood movie Disco Dancer (1982) starring Mithun Chakraborty.
John Podhoretz, in The Weekly Standard, wrote that the movie has a "mess" of a plot and features, "as usual for Sandler, plenty of dumb humor of the sort that gives dumb humor a bad name, but that delights his 14-year-old-boy fan base." But the film also has an "unusual" amount of "tantalizing comic ideas" so that "every 10 minutes or so, it makes you explode with laughter."[6] Entertainment Weekly gave the movie a C+ grade, calling it "another 'mess' from Sandler" which is, unlike Monty Python, a "circus that never flies".[14]
On the positive side, Time called the film to be a "laff scuffle".[15] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, and called it "a mighty hymn of and to vulgarity, and either you enjoy it, or you don't." Ebert admitted "I found myself enjoying it a surprising amount of the time, even though I was thoroughly ashamed of myself."[16] David Edelstein of New York Magazine went as far as to say "Adam Sandler is mesmerizing".[17] A.O. Scott of The New York Times said it was "the finest post-Zionist action-hairdressing sex comedy I have ever seen."[18]
The film was released on DVD on October 7, 2008, with a 2-disc unrated edition, a single-disc unrated edition, and a theatrical edition, as well as a Blu-ray edition and UMD for PSP. It has sold over 1.2 million DVD units gathering revenue of $26 million.[19]
Adam Sandler has been taking himself too seriously these days, even in his comedies. When his 2006 hit, Click, took a sudden and unexpected turn toward depression, life lessons, and melodrama in its last half hour, I almost started to miss the guy from Happy Gilmore who got in fights with Bob Barker. You Don't Mess With the Zohan is a loopy, if not uneven, comedy that seems lifted directly from his days on Saturday Night Live. The fact that Sandler wrote the film himself, along with former SNL writer, Robert Smigel, and superstar comedy filmmaker and producer, Judd Apatow (Knocked Up, Forgetting Sarah Marshall), lets you know that he is trying to regain some of the fanbase he may have lost over the years. While not entirely successful, and attached with an overly bloated two hour running time, Zohan is the most fun I've had watching a Sandler comedy in a while.
His title character is an Israeli counter-terrorist officer who is just as skilled with the ladies as he is at catching criminals and terrorists. Considering that this is a guy who can make superhuman leaps alongside buildings, catch bullets up his nose, and dismantle guns with his bare hands (then turning them into balloon animal shapes for the kids watching nearby), that's saying something. Zohan, however, is tired of his current life. Keeping the peace is great and all, but when he's alone, he clutches a late 1980s hair styling book close to his chest, and dreams of being a stylist in America. When he is sent on a mission to re-capture his arch nemesis, a terrorist who goes by the name of The Phantom (John Turturro, appropriately hamming it up and having the time of his life), Zohan sees an opportunity to fake his own death and start a brand new life. He smuggles himself on board a plane bound for New York by hiding in a dog carrier, and assumes a new identity named after the two dogs he was traveling with. Under the name "Scrappy Coco", Zohan is determined to make a name for himself.
Obviously, life in the US is hard for a Middle Eastern foreigner, and he can't seem to find work unless he wants to sell generic overpriced electronics or drive a cab. Eventually, he is able to find a hair salon willing to take a chance on him, run by a beautiful and down on her luck woman named Dalia (Emmanuelle Chrique from TV's Entourage). He starts out as a lowly hair sweeper, but he soon gets a chance to prove both his skills as a stylist and as a pleasurer of women. His process of cutting hair is like a cross between intercourse and Barber College. When his work with the hair is finished, he takes his customers into the back room for wild sex that shakes the very foundation of the salon itself. Word spreads, women start lining up outside the door, and Zohan is soon in danger of having his past catching up with him when a cab driver from his home country (Rob Schneider) recognizes him, and informs The Phantom of where his former enemy is residing. The Phantom, having opened up a chain of fast food restaurants overseas, drops everything to head for America for the final confrontation.
There's also a romantic subplot that develops between Zohan and Dalia, as well as another subplot about a greedy land developer tycoon (Michael Buffer) who is trying to spark riots in the ethnic neighborhoods, so he can tear everything down and build a mall. None of this matters, obviously. You Don't Mess With the Zohan is really just a chance for Sandler to cut loose with a character in a way that he hasn't been able to in quite a while, have a lot of fun with some of his former friends from his Saturday Night Live days, and throw a bunch of goofy jokes up on the screen, hoping that they will stick. The movie seems willing to do just about anything for a laugh, and although the humor isn't always politically correct (lots of jokes about Middle Easterners being obsessed with hummus to the point that they brush their teeth with it), I admired that the writers actually tried. A lot of the jokes fall flat, but there are some genuine laughs throughout, and I found myself smiling a lot more than I probably should have. When The Phantom prepares for his final battle with Zohan, we get a warped Rocky-style training montage where he cracks a couple of eggs into a glass, some baby chicks drop into the glass, and then he swallows the chicks whole. I admit it, I laughed. Later in that same sequence, The Phantom is punching various slabs of meat on hooks for his training, only to find a live cow hanging upside down on one of the hooks, and he punches that as well. If you don't laugh at the sight of a man punching a cow hanging upside down from the ceiling, you've lost your sense of the absurd.
Sandler earns some laughs of his own as well, and makes Zohan into a likable comic creation. In a role that could have easily been broadly overplayed or annoying, he turns the character into a charming innocent who just happens to have the agility of Spider-Man, and the sleuthing and sexual abilities of five James Bonds. His superhuman acts of heroism and pleasing women are wisely never explained. We're just expected to go with it, and we do, because Sandler plays Zohan as a regular guy. His abilities are second nature to him, so he does not see it as showing off. It's a fun character, and he's obviously having a lot of fun playing him. That being said, the character isn't quite good enough to carry a movie as long as this. This really does feel like an over extended idea from his sketch comedy days, and the goofy charms of Zohan and the movie itself can only take it so far. The themes of racial bonding, racial discrimination, and ordinary people coming together are not quite as heavy-handed as in some of Sandler's recent message comedies, but they still seem out of place in a movie where early on, Sandler drops a piranha down his pants and lets it attack his crotch without any display of pain just to show how strong he is. I also think it should be a written law that a movie that is not even remotely interested in its own plot should not stretch longer than 90 minutes (and even that is pushing it). The film's two hour running time stretches the movie to ridiculous lengths that it cannot reach.