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Zohan Dvir (Adam Sandler) is Israel’s top Anti Terror-Fighter. Like a mix of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jacky Chan, Spider-Man and The Incredible Hulk he is able to take out a small army single-handedly. But Zohan is tired of fighting, and in his last deployment against The Phantom (John Turturro) he stages his own death to pursue his dream – he wants to become a hairdresser in New York. With his new name “Scrappy Coco” Zohan tries to find work but none of the fashionable salons is interested in him. Finally he settles for a non-paid job as a floor sweeper in a struggling salon run by a Palestinian woman, Dhalia (Emmanuelle Chriqui).
Zohan could be happy when he gets – and seizes – the chance to become a hair stylist, but he gets recognized by Salim (Rob Schneider), a Palestinian cab driver who wants revenge because Zohan once stole his goat, and then there is Walbridge (Michael Buffer), a corporate tycoon who wants the small businesses (including Dhalia’s salon) out of the neighbourhood to build a megalomaniac mall, so he has two more battles to fight.

Another Adam Sandler film, another reason to be offended for a lot of people – Jews, Arabs, investors, animal-lovers, elderly ladies and Mel Gibson, just to mention a few. When you watch an Adam Sandler movie, you should know what you get – politically incorrect, gross humor, sexual references, and no prisoners taken. If you are a zynic, you may read the message of the movie like this: All Arabs are terrorists, Israelis are good, and only the USA can bring them peace. But that’s a zynic viewpoint and it’s not the point of Zohan. The point is to entertain people and to make them laugh, not so much to make a political statement. And if there is a political statement then it is that there was enough fighting already.
Despite the blatant humor and the stereotypes, or just because of Sandler’s conscious and exaggerated use of those stereotypes, Zohan has what so many blockbuster movies don’t have – it has a heart. It’s OK to laugh because Sandler loves his characters and his actors, and you can feel it.

You Don’t Mess With The Zohan movie trailer

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 24th, 2008 at 3:11 pm and is filed under 3-star-movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.