Urban Thought Collective

YOU DON’T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN (PG-13)

Biases:
Pleasepleaseplease be funny again, Sandler!

Players:
Adam Sandler, John Turturro, Emmanuelle Chriqui, co-writer/producer Judd Apatow.

Logline:
Israel’s most famous counter-terrorist celebrity, The Zohan (Sandler), fakes his own death so that he might pursue his dream of going to New York to work as a hairdresser in a Paul Mitchell salon, only ending up at a Palestinian-run shop with an elderly clientele as his old notoriety starts catching up to him.

The Deal:
I think I’ve figured it out: Adam Sandler is the white Tyler Perry. If you think about it, it almost matches up perfectly. Both are box office-drawing embarrassments to their race. Both are no longer funny (I’m not sure if Tyler Perry ever was - all I have to go on are his movies. Sandler’s “The Waterboy” and “Happy Gilmore” are still crass comedic classics). And both are so rich with lemming-like followings, they seem to have absolutely zero incentive to get better.

I’m almost inspired to do a similar “How bad is this?” for “Zohan” as I did with “Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns,” but I’ll spare you a Xerox of a review. To give you an idea of how bad “Zohan” is, I checked my email, text messaged a couple of people, and plied myself with an endless stream of candy so as not to puke in the aisle from disgusted disappointment. And I saw this for FREE.

Talk about your one-note, four-minute “Saturday Night Live” sketches drawn out to feature length craptaculars! Everything is a sight gag, and not particularly a funny one either. A lot of insider Israeli jokes deflate by the second reel (we GET IT - Israelis love their hummus on everything. Move along!). Hiding under the pseudonym “Scrappy Coco,” Sandler’s Zohan takes his kamikaze, Jack Bauer-on-a-bagel approach to everything, lathered under a thick accent, with Dow-Jonesy results.

Sandler also’s been working out, with the fruits of his four-month Navy SEAL training paying off in an oddly pumped up, more-naked-than-usual “performance.” Besides the bizarre cameos from those who know better (Chris Rock? Mariah Carey???), we’re “treated” to the de rigueur Rob Schneider (”You can do eeeet!”) secondary character, a broadly played Palestinian cab driver with a goat to grind with The Zohan.

Is it a total loss? Almost. Emmanuelle Chriqui (Sloan from HBO’s “Entourage”) flits across the screen in a shaky Palestinian accent and flowy, ethnic clothing as welcome eye candy/Zohan’s love interest. Rrrright - like her drop-dead gorgeous self would ever mess with a guy stuck in a 1987 stylistic time warp, no matter how earnestly he wants “to make people silky smooth.”

I’ve got another, random gripe about “The Zohan.” Don’t they have cable TV in Israel? Even a Puffy video from the late ’90s or a John Mayer interview could have saved you the indignity of that hideously anachronistic hair and wardrobe. Rick Astley is MOCKING you, son!

But alas, as with my current creative scapegoat Mr. Perry, these pleas for common sense, quality, and genuine entertainment shall fall on deaf eyes and blind ears. Because the world, and the “humor” of “The Zohan,” makes about as much sense as that last sentence. It’s so coarse and stupid, this film makes “Superbad” (far superior work by an obviously check-cashing Apatow here) look like “The Iliad.”

I love a good dirty, inappropriate, vulgar joke even more than the next guy, but a hummus orgasm just doesn’t cut it. Far more slap than stick, “The Zohan” should holla at his boy/girl “Madea” and compare notes. “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan?” You don’t mess with this mess.

@ REEL
(ONE REEL)
If you can’t sneak in, don’t go in.

Edwardo Jackson is the author of the novels EVER AFTER and NEVA HAFTA, (Villard/Random House), a writer for The 213 Magazine, and an LA-based screenwriter. Visit his website at www.edwardojackson.com, where his new novel I DO? is available NOW. Jackson’s reviews are exclusive to www.urbanthoughtcollective.com.