Dec 28 2008
You Don’t Mess with the Zohan Never Gets Going
You Don’t Mess with the Zohan was released in theaters in the summer of this year. It stars Adam Sandler who seems to try way too hard to be funny. There are way too many sexual jokes that fall flat and you find yourself thinking “did he just do that?” Sandler could do better than this movie and with all of the good comedy actors included in the film you would think that they could make it work. But they can’t seem to save this poor plot.
Sandler stars as a special forces soldier from Israel who gets tired of fighting off “terrorists” and decides to fake his death in order to achieve his dream of becoming a hair dresser in America. There are too many problems with this film that rubs me the wrong way. There are too many sterotypical jokes that are intended to be insulting. Even though I don’t fall into the stereotypes that they were targeting I find it hard to watch. No real comedy should be stoop to such levels in order to try to get a laugh. A comment in the movie was that they had wished that Israel could get along with the Arab countries yet You Don’t Mess with the Zohan takes every opportunity to send the message to the audience that Arabs are stupid or evil. Knowing of the bad relationship between Jews and Arabs it is rather odd to me that a film with so many jewish actors are playing the parts of Arabs and portraying all of them in a bad way. How is that repairing the relationship between the cultures and countries?
I wouldn’t recommend You Don’t Mess with the Zohan. Don’t waste your time. The film never gets going due to the many stupid jokes and plot that goes nowhere. Mariah Carey and John McEnroe make cameo appearances and probably regret doing so. They served no purpose to the movie other than to be able to promote that these stars are in it. The only thing good about You Don’t Mess with the Zohan is the music. Sandler always picks good music for his films and once again he didn’t disappoint. Too bad he isn’t so lucky with his film choices.
Rob Schneider, Kevin Nealon, and Chris Rock have small roles in this film. Rock probably appeared to bring in viewers while the other two just needed work.
