If you enjoyed Ben Stiller in Zoolander then You Don't Mess With The Zohan is bound to be right up your street, and I have to confess it's the first Adam Sandler movie I have enjoyed for a great amount of time.
Zohan (Sandler) is a Mossad agent whose life is spent carrying out assignments for his government, there is no one like, neither has there ever been anyone like Zohan, he is the ultimate killing machine. Sadly for Zohan this is not the life he chooses for himself, he dreams of being a hairdresser feeling he has the special touch. So when an opportunity arises for him to fake his own death and head for America, where he plans to make it as "the" hairdresser. But great popularity causes great attention and it's not long before agents from Zohan's past come searching for him in the present.
Zohan is hardly a movie to cause you to laugh out loud; however what it does do is give you chance to double take a number of times. A little game of keepie ups providing the biggest double take, and the thing that awoke me from my partial slumber,
hang on a minute that's not a football they are kicking, it's a cat! Even realising that this is clearly a computer generated effect it's a scene that you cannot help to look at open jawed, and in reflection it's the most memorable image from the whole movie.
Whereas most of Sandlers movies are fairly family friendly this one most certainly is not, it's incredibly crude at times with phenomenal amounts of sexual reference with Zohan's libido being out of control, literally having to have sex with more or less everything with a pulse. There are lots of penis references throughout the movie so much so that you reach a certain level where it becomes well beyond a joke. It's rather like a child that has learnt his/her new vulgar expression, repeatedly ramming it down your throat until you cannot stand anymore.
What I did like about the movie was the fact that a lot of the humour was fairly unique, so many movies just rehash the old humour time and time again the team of Dennis Dugan, Adam Sandler and Robert Smigel have all clearly put their heads together to deliver some new laughs, and to be honest it's most definitely about time.
If you like your humour a little sick this will definitely please you, Zohan can catch fish in his anus, jealous huh? Pubic hair jokes, impotence jokes, lots of vomiting, and some compelling piranha action all are thrown into the mixing pot providing you with the "ugh!" factor, now for some that's not a good thing, but for me I love a good laugh at something sick. That being said I can't claim I laughed a great deal, though I did smile. But then again there were so many people around laughing at the bits I never found funny, I kind of felt a bit smothered like I shouldn't laugh; as a rank outsider in the review writing world I already feel the pressure and certainly frowned upon, the truth that I'm a sicko could end my career before it starts. . This is definitely a movie I need to watch on DVD so I can really gauge the humour aspect.
The supporting cast are pretty much non-entities John Tuturro stars as The Phantom, Zohan's arch enemy and to be honest I feel like the actor has sold himself out cheap. Zohan has been adraw to the famous with Mariah Carey, John McEnroe, George Takei, Bruce Vilanch, Rob Schneider, Chris Rock and Kevin Nealon all fighting for a little bit of attention. George Takei's cameo being the most amusing especially if you have followed the Star Trek actor's recent personal life.
You Don't Mess With The Zohan over compensates with the comedy, and lets the actual plot sit on the back burner there really is very little to the movie, but if you compare it to Sandler's output over the past five years it is by far the best movie in that time. An added bonus of the movie is that it does not go over the top on the love angle either, while Zohan has a woman in his sights it's a very small part of the movie.
I look forward to seeing the DVD of this over the next couple of months so I can assess the movie properly having had time to give it my full attention, but for now one thing is for sure it's bound to be a hit.
You Don't Mess With The Zohan hits UK cinemas on August 15th.
Spencer Hawken 06/08
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Comedy - Original Language: English - Classification: 12 years and over - Starring: Tessa Peake-Jones, Buster Merryfield, David Jason, Nicholas Lyndhurst
Comedy - Director: Tony Dow - Original Language: English - Classification: 12 years and over - Starring: John Challis, David Jason, Nicholas Lyndhurst, Tessa Peake-Jones, Gwyneth Strong
Comedy superstar Adam Sandler is back - and funnier than ever - as The Zohan, the finest ... more
counterterrorist agent the Israeli army has. That is, until he fakes his death and travels to Manhattan to live his dream...as a hairdresser. Now this skilled figh...
Advantages: Good start, amusing at points, Disadvantages: Drags on way too long for my liking, too much of a one-joke movie, a bit too stereotypical perhaps
Jun 17th, 2008
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