Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here.

If you had asked me to name five movies I was dreading seeing this summer, the new Adam Sandler film, YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN, would have been in the top three. I don't have anything against Sandler as a comic actor. I've gotten a kick out of a few films he's done since his leaving "Saturday Night Live" and beginning a career of playing characters with silly voices doing dumb shit. I feel lately he's been trying a little too hard to be likable rather than offensive and/or annoying, and the results have been mixed at best. With last year's I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU CHUCK & LARRY, he grazed the subject of gay marriage and managed to piss off both gay and straight people with him ham-handed attempt at a message film. Today the film's lasting impression on anyone is that Jessica Biel looks phenomenal in her underwear. On the surface, ZOHAN is following a similar trend (it didn't encourage me that CHUCK & LARRY director Dennis Dugan was helming this film, as well). And it does seem appallingly bold of Sandler to even broach the subject of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict using humor, but the weird thing is that something about this movie actually works. I found myself laughing more than I have in a very long time at a Sandler comedy. Hell, even the standard-issue Rob Schneider role didn't annoy me much.

I'd love to say I know the reason why ZOHAN turned out as well as it did. One could look at the writing credits for an easy answer: the screenplay is credited to Sandler, Robert Smigel (the SNL writer who created Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and "TV Funhouse"), and the omnipresent Judd Apatow. I'm not saying better writing didn't have something to do with the film being one of the most entertaining self-made Sandler films of the decade, but there's something more going on here. Sandler still wants us to like his character, a Mossad counter-terrorist agent who fakes his own death and reappears in New York City to begin life anew as a hairdresser. But Sandler and Dugas also want us (or at least the ladies) to find Zohan sexy, desirable and dangerously handsome. Zohan's nemesis is the Palestinian assassin known only as The Phantom (the glorious John Turturro, who hasn't been this wonderfully over-the-top since THE BIG LEBOWSKI). These men are not just soldiers in a holy war; they are supermen who can defy gravity, physics, and logic with their skills. Zohan can even barbeque and disco at the same time in the nude (there is more bare ass in the film than I could handle).

Knowing that he would suffer terrible humiliation if his hairdressing fantasy was ever brought to light in his own country, he lets the world believe The Phantom has killed him, and he smuggles himself into America where he hopes not to be recognized. Since he has no experience as a stylist, he's unable to get his dream job at the Paul Mitchell hair salon, and he ends up working for a Palestinian cutie named Dalia (Emmanuelle Chriqui from "Entourage"). Once he finally gets a pair of scissors, some shampoo, and his first client, Zohan works his magic on the old ladies that frequent the rundown salon. But he adds his own special brand of customer service by schtupping each one, which pretty much guarantees repeat business. The noises alone are enough to make you heave, but there's no denying the concept is funny. I also particularly liked the sequences with the family Zohan is staying with (the mom is played by Lainie Kazan, with Nick Swardson, who is particularly funny as her son who must endure the knowledge that mom is bedding his new friend).

Sandler continues his tradition of packing his movie with celebrity cameos, including everyone from Michael Buffer as the film's villain, a real estate developer who wants to build a mega-mall where the salon is; Schneider as a Palestinian New York City cab driver, who has a history with Zohan and wants him dead; Kevin Nealon as a cowardly neighborhood watch agent who works with Zohan to clean up the community; and a few others that deserve to stay surprises. And while the love story between Zohan and Dalia is fairly run of the mill, the rest of the film is a little more inventive. Never have I seen such a crotch-centered PG-13 movie. Jokes about Zohan's enormous and constant bulge fill every inch of this movie (turns out the bulge is from his massive man-bush and not his penis). When Zohan is teaching a fellow stylist his technique, he makes sure to show him how to rub his crotch against the arm of the client while he's washing their hair. "It's okay, they like it," he insists. It's pervy and wrong, but it's also hilarious watching two men hump the shoulders of an old lady. Don't ask me why.

ZOHAN takes a stab at offering a can't-we-all-just-get-along solution to the centuries-old Middle East crisis, and on that level it fails miserably. But that part of the film makes up such a small fraction of the proceedings that it didn't stop me from having a lot of fun watching this return-to-silly form from Sandler and his buddies. The film is uneven--no surprise there--but it's less so than some of Sandler's more recent broad comedies. Ultimately, I tend to judge any comedy by one criteria: Was I laughing during this film more often than I wasn't laughing? Fortunately, ZOHAN has quite a lot of big and small laughs. Sure it also has an oversimplified look at and solution to a major global situation and heaps of unnecessary sentimentality, but the funny outweighs these deficiencies.

Capone
capone@aintitcoolmail.com