On ne rigole pas avec le Zohan

I can't believe the amount of people slagging off this movie. If you didn't want to see what you saw, why did you go see it?

I think some people have their genres confused when they start talking about 'shedding light on conflict' blah blah. What the hell? It's an Adam Sandler movie not Schindler's list.

It's not the greatest flick there ever was, but it did give me a great laugh! So what if the humor is silly? Most of his movies have an ample dosage of silly that I for one thoroughly appreciate!

I think Don't Mess with the Zohan is best seen knowing nothing about it and having no expectations. Therefore I'm not going to tell you the whole story aside from the ending like so many people. It's not about the story anyway.

In short, to those that appreciate humor of the Adam Sandler/Will Ferrel brand.

Get into it!

--Also for the ladies, Adam Sandler looks so very HOT in this!

Look folks, this is ADAM SANDLER we're talking about here. Yes, this is the same stuff that he was doing ten years ago with "The Waterboy." Yes, this is the same company that brought us "Happy Gilmore" and "Click." And yes, while I have aged a bit since I could appreciate the his silliness, there is still a part of me that enjoys the goofy fun that Adam Sandler likes to put on screen. I knew very well coming in to the 7:45 showing of "You Don't Mess with the Zohan" that this was going to be crazy. And sure enough, it was. But you know what, I liked it, my friend liked it, quite a few people in the audience liked it, it was a good time had.

Adam Sandler loves to put himself in ridiculous situations. In "Gilmore," he was a hockey nut with a hidden talent for golf. In "Mr. Deeds," he became a billionaire overnight. This guy has played football (twice), gone on fifty first dates, paused and sped up his life, and married Kevin James. Now, he's an Isreali counter-terrorist with a fetish for cutting hair. Oh, and he loves making sexual remarks as much as Borat does. Sound familiar? Thought it did.

So how does the humor compare to previous Sandler features? Well, it's unfocused. Part of the problem is that three writers with different mentalities are writing the script. The silliness comes from Sandler, the raunchy stuff comes from Apatow, and everything else comes from Smigel. Although I found myself laughing at quite a few parts (particularly when the Zohan was on the job as a soldier), there were also a lot of parts where I was thinking to myself "Come on. Another shot of the crotch?" (Or butt, or some other sexual reference) All of these various ingredients have been thrown in together, and the end result is, let's face it, uneven.

But though the movie may have lacked focus, I couldn't help but have fun with it. You see, unlike "Mr. Deeds" (which I found boring and lame), this film goes whole hog. Sandler and the cast surrounding him do almost everything in their power to make a joke out of something. These guys aren't sleepwalking through their roles, to the contrary, they're having a great time putting on a show. It's contagious. About halfway through the movie, I began to realize the reason I was having fun with the "Zohan" was because this movie essentially gives out an open invitation to enjoy the silliness that was being presented. By the end of the movie, Sandler had done the most outrageous acts I had seen him do since "Happy Gilmore." And frankly, I think I prefer Sandler when he just tries everything.

Fans of Sandler will most likely enjoy this one, non-fans should pass. For what it's worth, "You Don't Mess with the Zohan" is a good continuation of the act Sandler has put on for us for over a decade now. Worth a Saturday matinée.

Why do I listen to what's top 3 on Netflix!!! There's always an Adam Sandler film in the top ten. For good reason I suppose, he's very likeable, and produces a certain kind of film.

I was in the mood for watching a film, which didn't need me to think or use my brain in any way, shape or form, this did the job, I laughed at the sheer nonsense.

Under normal circumstances, I probably wouldn't watch it, but after a tough day, it made me laugh, and made me switch off.

It's awful, and I will never be able to unsee Sandler's butt, but I chuckled the whole way through it. 7/10.

This movie starts off as being so overwhelmingly stupid, that it makes you laugh. And it goes on for the duration of the movie. Special effects and stuff are clearly not that good but that is what is making me laugh for a large part of the movie.

In the end, this is a movie good enough to entertain you and bring a big smile on your face.

Zohan Dvir is a legendary Mossad agent known for his unique skills and indestructible nature but, unlike his current violent job, Zohan's dream is to become a hairdresser and bless the world with the gift of silky-soft and styled hair. He seems destined to never know this dream though, until he decides to fake his own death during a battle with Palestinian freedom fighter/terrorist The Phantom. One smuggled flight later, Zohan arrives in New York to take up a position at the salon of Paul Mitchell but finds that he cannot just walk into this world of styling and washing. Refusing to work in an electric store, Zohan finds work as a cleaner in a small salon run by a Palestinian woman, where he waits his chance to prove his skills.

The unusual title and setting for the characters were enough to make me forget that, ultimately, what I was about to watch was nothing more than an Adam Sandler comedy. You see, mostly, when you come to a Sandler comedy you know what you are going to get and have a feel for whether or not it is your type of thing. Now the quality of his films may vary but generally what he does and how he does it in most films is pretty constant. However, Mossad agents who wish to pursue a dream of hairdressing in the US is not one of his usual themes and somehow I thought this might be more than just an Adam Sandler comedy as I have experienced them in the past.

The film itself didn't allow me to sit in this misconception for very long as from the very start we find ourselves with physical comedy and jokes reliant totally on body parts and sex organs. This continues with ongoing humour drawn from a young man having intercourse with elderly women on a frighteningly regular basis. Of course if I still hadn't worked it out, then what really reminds me where I am is that the entire film is silly beyond belief but yet also still finds time for a stunning young woman to fall for the main character no matter how arrogant/stupid/unlikable he is - a persistent thread in Sandler films. So, knowing what you are getting into is important but, once there, what does Zohan do for the casual viewer - ie not the audience member who puts Sandler as #1 on the list of all time comedians but rather someone who sees him as, at best, a man who can turn his juvenile comedy into a guilty pleasure. Well, Zohan is not really that funny a film but it just about has enough wild humour and creativity to it to make it quite fun. I was not laughing out loud that often but it did have plenty of amusing moments that made me not hate it - which was a possibility. What helps it is that it throws itself totally into how nonsensical it all is and never really attempts to step away from it, thus maintaining the tone that is knowingly silly and makes it possible for the audience to accept this and not unfairly expect anything more.

Of course this does not make it brilliant by any means and the film is still only silly fun and not a hilarious comedy that is accessible to all. Sandler himself throws himself into his role and his accent even if he still has the same crude material as ever. The fact that he makes fun of the Israel/Palestine situation is a move that gives his material a "different" feel but it is essentially a different doorway to the same material. He plays up the silly aspect but of more help is a wonderfully daft Turturro, Schneider and others, who get easy laughs without the need to progress plot. As she did in "In The Mix", Chriqui concentrates on being light and sexy – not that easy with her accent but she does her basic requirement.

Zohan looks like it will be a daring and imaginative comedy but, beyond the basic design of the film the material is pretty much what you would expect from an Adam Sandler film in so much as it is crude, silly and aimed at a teenage market. It is silly and if you are in the mode it is quite fun but if you are looking for anything more than that then you'll be disappointed. An usual Adam Sandler film, but still very much an Adam Sandler film.