You Don't Mess with the Zohan

An Israeli super-soldier (Adam Sandler) secretly yearns to give up fighting and become a hair stylist.

You Don’t Mess with the Zohan is really two movies in one. Unfortunately, only one of them is any good.

The first half of the film is an over-the-top delight. Sandler’s Zohan is a superman and it’s fun watching the filmmakers come up with increasingly absurd ways of illustrating the point, whether it be his naked hacky-sacking, twenty foot flying jump kick, or the little “extra” he gives to his elderly customers at the salons, it’s all wonderfully original, crazy fun in the spirit of Malcolm Lee’s Undercover Brother.

But then, at about the halfway point, the film loses all of its originality and falls into a tired rut of a plot involving a forbidden romance and big business trying to force out ethnic minorities. Not only does this suck all the fun out of the film, but it also pads the running time to nearly two hours, a length its premise can’t support. With three credited screenwriters, including Sandler, Robert Smigel, and Judd Apatow it’s hard to determine just who’s responsible for this misstep, but the result is a film that ultimately leaves you feeling slightly burned if you watch it all the way through.

That said, You Don’t Mess with the Zohan should make for an entertaining enough ride, provided you’ve got access to remote with a fast-forward button.