You Don’t Mess with the Zohan

( 2008 )

*** 1/2

Adam Sandler is known for his movies that always seem to get release dates in each year’s summer.  Over the years, I’ve grown custom to Sandler’s wacky films. Even though throughout the years, his movies never do amazing, I always have a fun time enjoying his work.  I wasn’t too sure about this movie before going to the theater, but of course, I had to check out this movie because it is one of Adam Sandlers.

Apart from Sandler, this film stars John Turturro as Zohan’s arch nemesis, Phantom.  This character is pretty hilarious.  Then we have, as always in a Adam Sandler film, Rob Schneider and Nick Swardson.  Kevin James also makes a brief appearance in this movie.  James is also known to play opposite Sandler in last years, “I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry.”

This movie was basically about Zohan, who is an Israeli Counter Terrorist soldier, who has superhuman abilities.  The things his character does reminds me halfway between a cartoon character from the Looney Tunes, and a superhero, right out of a comic book.  Though the problem is, Zohan does not want to be a soldier anymore, even though that’s what he does best.  He wants to move to America, and become a successful hair stylist.

That is what he does, he fakes his death, and sets out for his dreams.  The only problem is when one of his enemies spot him in America, and vow to destroy him once and for all.

Some good points I would like to mention is, I loved the beginning sequence of him in the army doing what he does best, amazing stunts.  I could watch an entire movie full of just that.  Another thing I enjoyed about this film was that, it would be very easy for the filmmakers to put some things into the film that would make it far worse then it turned out, and I am glad they didn’t.

Although this is another Sandler movie, there is an aspect to his character that you don’t normally see in any of his other films.  He is basically playing himself in his other films.  Technically not, but he could, and the movie would be just as good.  In Zohan, however, his character is so much different, its very entertaining.

The film also had its negative points as well.  Although the hair stylist thing was funny, Zohan could have inspired to have any other occupation, and I believe it would be just as enjoyable.  It’s his character that won the crowd over, not his profession.  I think this is a film that could be made into sequels, where Zohan would try out other occupations.

There were some aspects of the movie which I did not like.  I won’t get into it very much, but the point is that you can have something be funny in the movie, but I think in the movie, it crossed a certain line where the joke just isn’t funny anymore. So that made my viewing experience worse.

I really wanted to rate this movie a four out of five.  I had to think about it for a while before I came up with my final score which is 3 1/2 out of 5.  Like I said before, it crossed a certain line, so I had to lower the score. Peace out!