You Don’t Mess With the Zohan
In the canon of Adam Sandler movies, “Zohan” is a step up from recent too-eager-to-please movies like “Big Daddy,” “Mr. Deeds,” “Click,” and “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry” and is a return to the no-holds-barred Sandler aesthetic of “Happy Gilmore” and “The Waterboy.” In that category, it’s my favorite of his movies, though I still hold a soft spot for his more romantic efforts like “The Wedding Singer,” “50 First Dates,” and the un-Sandler-like “Punch-Drunk Love” as the key films bringing out the best of Sandler. Maybe I shouldn’t be too surprised; in the “Written by” credit, right below Sandler and Robert Smigel is the name of Judd Apatow, the current king of raunchy comedy with modern classics like “The 40 Year-Old Virgin,” “Knocked Up” and “Superbad.” That would explain why the laughs caught in my throat in a good way this time.
It also helps that Sandler’s Zohan seems in the vein of “Gilmore” and “Waterboy’s” lovable outsiders more than it does as just an extension of Sandler’s general persona. An Isreali counter-terrorist of improbable skill, Zohan can’t take the fighting anymore. One night while cleaning his weapons, he pulls out a Paul Mitchell style book from 1987- the artist of artery slashing has a secret desire to style hair. Don’t mistake him for being gay though- that’ll get you contortioned in unsettling ways by the Zohan. His parents don’t approve, but Zohan’s had enough. While on a mission to capture the infamous Palestinian terrorist known as Phantom (John Turturro, recalling his pedophile bowler Jesus in “The Big Lebowski”), Zohan finds an opportunity to fake his own death, and get away from the killing. He winds up in the melting pot of New York City, and after his retro-’80s act gets shot down by Mitchell’s salon, Zohan finds himself working at- of all places- a Palestinian-run salon in a Middle Eastern area of town with shops run by both Isrealis and Palestinians. A life-long soldier in the fight between both sides, Zohan is confused by the relative peace he sees in both sides here; he works at the salon under the name Scrappy Coco, afraid of what the owner (the lovely Emmanuelle Chriqui, who- not surprisingly- becomes the Zohan’s love interest) might think. He certainly has a way with the customers, though; his haircuts are matched only by his ability to please his clients sexually…at least until love gets in the way.
You can probably figure out where things go from there…or the previews. What makes it work are the almost non-stop barrage of laughs as the film sinks to sometimes unsettling levels of vulgarity, be it when Zohan starts screwing the mother of his first friend in New York (“Reno 911” regular Nick Swarsdon), or when he is on Neighborhood Watch and his military training comes out to the horror of his more conservative Watchmate (“SNL” costar Kevin Nealon), or when he is spotted by a Palestinian cabbie (Sandler cohort Rob Schneider) who calls on Hamas to take care of the situation, or when Zohan and Phantom play tennis with a live grenade. Nothing is sacred for Sandler and co., yet everything somehow stays in the realm of PG-13 fun. Sure, Sandler seems to be preaching about the continuing animosity in the Middle East with a thinly-veiled political message, but I don’t remember “Munich” being this funny. Lighten up folks- Sandler’s making with the funny again after failed attempts at serious moods with “Spanglish” and last year’s insulting “Reign Over Me.” That alone makes it almost as good an experience as Zohan’s haircuts are to his clients. Welcome back Adam…now I think I see what the fuss is about.
