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Perhaps oddly for someone whose favourite film is Punch-Drunk Love, I've otherwise never been able to abide Adam Sandler. In fact, I seem to remember making a mental note after enduring the vileness that is Click to avoid his pictures in the future. Stuck in Leeds one very rainy afternoon, and with WALL.E having already been on for an hour, I decided that the film the cinema's list of now-showing movies simply identified as Zohan was the least-worst option.
And, I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised. The deeply silly – but, jaw-droppingly, true-story-inspired – story of a one-man-army Mossad agent (Sandler) who fakes his own death so that he can fulfil his dream of working as a Manhattan hair-stylist, the picture is so gleefully tasteless, near-relentlessly energetic and puppyishly dopey that I found my resistance crumbling into semi-guilty giggles.
Though not exactly adroit in its handling of thorny middle-eastern political issues, You Don't Mess with the Zohan deserves some credit for at least trying to tackle thorny middle-eastern political issues within the context of a mainstream comedy that's frequently quite breathtakingly broad. The real subject, however, isn't Arab/Israeli relations per se - this is rather the latest comedy to celebrate (and semi-satirically perpetuate) The American Dream, the idea that the USA is a land of opportunity where hard work and diligence will eventually pay off, and where races and nationalities can settle differences that have been simmering for hundreds or thousands of years back in the "old country."
There's so much more that unites us than divides us, the script assures – a case in point being the (apparently) universally-adored Mariah Carey, who contributes an amusingly self-mocking appearance and is rewarded for her gameness by being filmed from a couple of decidedly unflattering angles. This is one of among many surprisingly starry star-cameos: John McEnroe throws himself into his minute-long turn so exuberantly that he appears to remove his top and gyrate semi-naked for a split-second (uhh… can he be serious?!)
Sandler, his usual nasal man-child whine mercifully replaced by Zohan's swaggering. comedy-Israeli accent, gets to show off a much wider range of comic skills than usual, his bodily contortions exaggerated by some nifty – and suitably ludicrous – CGI enhancements. But whereas Zohan's Bourney/Bondish skills border on the supernatural, Sandler is utterly powerless to prevent John Turturro – as his Arab nemesis 'The Phantom' – from stealing every scene in which he appears, the latter somehow keeping a straight-ish face as he amps his Big Lebowski nefarious-flamboyant-weirdo shtick up to 11 with perhaps the most outrageous and hammily enjoyable turn from a supposedly 'serious' actor since the latest Christopher Walken wig-out.
Neil Young
28.Aug.08
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USA
113m (BBFC timing)
director : Dennis Dugan (I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, The Benchwarmers, National Security, etc)
editor : Tom Costain (Grandma's Boy, Strange Wilderness.)
seen 21.Aug.08 Leeds (Vue cinema, The Light : £5.65)
