"B-" Rating by Robert W. Hammerle

It profoundly pains me to make this admission, but I actually enjoyed Adam Sandler's "You Don't Mess With The Zohan." There, I said it. And yes, I feel unclean.

Rising above his standard sophomoric crudeness and profound sexism, "Zohan" gradually gains momentum until it evolves into a genuinely meaningful film. And let me tell you, I never thought that I would ever, ever use the word "meaningful" in the same sentence with an Adam Sandler movie.

Despite his immense popularity, I have never cared for Sandler's pictures. With the exception of his performance in Paul Thomas Anderson's "Punch-Drunk Love" (2002) and his role as the put upon husband of the wonderfully crazed Téa Leoni in James Brooks' disappointing "Spanglish" (2004), he always seemed to bring a smug conceit to his role as the juvenile idiot. I'm afraid I could seldom find anything funny in characterizations that were borderline offensive.

More disturbing, however, has been his grotesque tendency to objectify women in the most banal of fashions. For example, remember the scene in "Click" (2006) when he reduced the female jogger to slow motion so he could ogle her bouncing breasts? I never was able to connect with hints at humor built around an adult acting like an eight-year-old boy.

Certainly "Zohan" exhibits some of Sandler's traditional sexist weaknesses, particularly at the beginning. Grilling fish while stark naked on an Israeli beach while being ogled by his traditional bevy of air-headed beach babes, the encounter between one of the little fishes and his posterior is vintage gutter Sandler humor.

In addition, his sexual antics with the mother of his American roommate (a memorable performance by Lainie Kazan) must be seen to be believed. And while on this subject, all parents should be sternly warned to avoid taking any child under the age of sixteen to this movie. It may be rated PG-13, but the sexual content is so in your face that I can't imagine any parent not breaking into a cold sweat after belated realizing that they've taken their children into what is in every respect an R-rated film.

As many of you probably know by now, Sandler plays Zohan, an expert Israeli assassin. Tired of the never-ending killing, he fakes his own death and flees to America to pursue his dream of being a hairstylist.

Assuming a new identity, he eventually is hired at a Palestinian beauty shop run by the incredibly beautiful Emmanuelle Chriqui. The shop is located on a street in New York that serves as a not too subtle metaphor of the Israeli/Palestinian dilemma, with its Arab stores on one side and Jewish shops on the other.

In that sense, "Zohan" captured much of the same spirit so wonderfully expressed in the far superior Oscar winning short "West Bank Story" (2005). While the latter comically lampoons the psychological and emotional divide separating Israelis and Palestinians through music, "Zohan" scored its own points through goofy, physical humor. (For example, when Sandler tells his parents in Israel that he is fed up with the never-ending battles of the Middle East, his mother tries to comfort him by saying, "But it's been going on for over two thousand years. How much longer can it really last?")

Any review of this movie cannot fail to pay tribute to John Turturro's extraordinarily over the top performance as a Palestinian terrorist named "Phantom." As hammy as his performance was, it was brutally funny.

In addition, "Zohan" was helped along by Sandler's old Saturday Night Live colleagues' Kevin Neland and Rob Schneider. Schneider in particular is quite good playing an inept, Palestinian immigrant longing for fame and fortune. It was a pleasure to see Schneider regain some of his old comic form after years in the wilderness.

For those of you who still harbor doubts about seeing this movie, let me close with a reference to a scene where Zohan is riding in a Taxi driven by an immigrant played by Chris Rock. Learning that Zohan is also an immigrant, Rock tells him of his own experiences, including his goal saving enough money to bring his siblings to America to enjoy its freedoms. When Sandler asks Rock if he has been able do so, Rock responds with a slight smile on his face,

"No, they have all been hacked to death back home.
But can you believe the Chinese food in this City!"

Something is clearly wrong with me. First I express admiration for "Dewey Cox," now "Zohan." Is it possible that I have been taken over by the Pod People? Anyone know a good twelve-step program to counter the effects of alien infestation?