Movie: You Don’t Mess with the Zohan

If you are expecting any serious stuff from this movie, then you shouldn’t watch it. It’s an Adam Sandler movie and pure comedy.

The story is about Zohan, an Israeli super-commando who can kick through walls to knock out terrorists hiding behind them, strips a terrorist’s weapon faster than he can pull the trigger, catches bullets with his noise, and kicks any terrorists ass many ways. Yet all he wanted to do was to get away from all the fighting, and be a hair stylist.

Failing to get the understanding from his parents, Zohan fakes his death in a mission to capture the terrorist known as ‘The Phantom’, and then stow away on a plane to America to seek his dreams. After failing to be employed by several hair stylists, he ends up in a neighbourhood where the Arabs and the Israelis live side by side along a common street.

This is where he met Dalia, an Arab girl, and was given a job in the her hair salon and he subsequently fell in love with her after a while. In the background were subplots on how Halim, whose goat was taken by Zohan back when they were still in Israel, trying to take revenge for that deed, and how an evil developer tried to create tension and hatred among the Israeli and Arab expatriate communities so they will move out to allow him to build a mall.

Of course in the end the man gets the girl, and the bad guy gets his just deserts. Behind all these is probably this one big ‘lecture’ on how there isn’t really much separating everyone except for the politics, while the politics also linked them together, and how everyone can put aside the hatred and live happily together. You know, that usual bs about America is the melting pot of all cultures and the land where everyone goes to live out their dreams. [I believe the Russian word for that would be Strana Mechty – Country of Dreams.]

I wondered beyond that, whether the underlying theme behind this movie is trying to tell us that Israeli super-commandos are horny and immoral to the point they don’t care who they are humping. Or is it trying to hint that the Americans – symbolised by the the white real estate developer Walbridge – is the mastermind behind all the flare ups in the Middle East. Of course, I agree entirely that it is meaningless to capture the terrorists only to exchange them after some talks.

My personal opinion is just enjoy the movie and laugh about it without looking for too much meaning. We all need some mindless humor and relaxtion once in awhile and this movie would definitely provide it if you would keep yourself from being too critical or trying to hard to be an artsy fartsy dimwit.

4 comments

  1. Wait until you see Will smith “Hancock”. This one and zohan definitely must catch in movie theatre.

  2. hummus! 😛

    its a typical Sandler movie. His movies are always full of exaggerating stereotypes and thought provoking with that “now what’s the moral of the story?” ending. I just caught it today and it was definitely worth it.

    malique‘s last blog post: Hello, David Taylor?

  3. The movie was kinda fun, but the ending was a huge letdown, really. Other than that, some parts were quite predictable (or is it because I’ve watched too many Sandler movies?).

    Isaiah‘s last blog post: 99 Balloons

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