The Hebrew Hammer

"The Hebrew Hammer", is all about Goldberg as the certified circumcised private dick title character, a Jewish combination of Shaft, Superfly, and Mike Hammer, who sets about to defeat an evil Santa Claus who has sworn to put an end to Hanukkah. A campy, silly, an occasionally outrageous slam fest, this flick takes potshots at Jews, Afro-Ams, and white gentiles as our not-so-super-hero goes after Santa armed only with a babe, big guns, and guilt trips. What the film lacks in class and production value it almost makes up for with nonstop kosher comedy of the same ilk at Scary Movie, Naked Gun, Airplane, etc. Only for those into wacky slampoons who aren't concerned with political correctness. (B-)

I admit a weakness for these types of self-conscious parodies when done well.

For me, that means a mix of riches. First, it has to be brutal. There's no sense in toying with something stupid and at time showing sympathy for that stupidity. All the better if the targets of the thing have some sort of societal proscription.

MASH was funny (when it was) because it treated war like something completely without honor or value. Anything that Mel Brooks does fails the brutality test. He's merely juvenile, and not ashamed to shift perspectives for a giggle.

This is funny because it destroys two boundaries. The most obvious is the Jewish stereotype. Yes, it exists. Yes, like any other group, they identify themselves, quite actively bending their lives, by drifting toward those very characteristics as a matter of definition.

There's a long tradition of stage humor where Jews make fun of themselves and I assert that all these societal parodies spring from it, at least in the US.

But the other bit is ever so clever. What they've built on is a pastiche of blaxploitation movies (and a few others as well). Part of the cleverness is in revealing these things to be even dumber than we readily admit; they take us to extremes we wouldn't otherwise go. Its a bit risky, that.

So we have a triple layer here: Jews making fun of the kind of Jewishness they cling to. All of us making fun of a similar dynamic in blacks that black culture isn't mature enough to disparage. (Though half of Chris Rock's stuff comes close.) And on top of that we get some posturing, not much, but some that rigorously belittles us for being the moviewatchers we are. In recent memory the second Charlies Angels did it best, but there wasn't the delicious edge this has.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

The Hebrew Hammer, the toughest Jew in the hood, singlehandedly (but with the support of the entire Jewish League and some black brothers) saves Hanukkah from the new evil and racist Santa. A lot of Jewish self deprecation and cliches, some of them are really funny, but overall it all felt kind of bland. I don't know, you probably have to be Jewish to get the jokes or something. To me it all felt just really racist without being funny most of the time.

Jew or not (for purposes of getting the in-jokes), the first half is all hilarious gimmick and a great one at that. We've all wanted to see a bad-ass orthodox jew who talks jive. Why not? The concept is hilarious, and the skits they set up for a while are too because they all juztapose blaxpoitation for jewxpoitation. But there are only so many jokes to be had about stereotypes. the second half runs totally flat. They should have used less obvious jokes in the first half, saved some for the second, and written a more interesting plot through out the entire length of the film. I gave it a 7 (deserves a 5) because of the strong strong start.

BTW, what the hell is wring with so many reviewers out there? Some of the reviews of this movie are ridiculous: best holiday movie, insanely hilarious, best i have ever seen. I mean, this is the '00's... we (especially imdbers) are supposed to be much more sophisticated than people in the '60 and '70's when it comes to films. it is not any of the aforementioned claims, who are writing these things?

The concept is good, the performances are good, but this film is too uneven to be great. Writer/director Jonathan Kesselman should've watched the much better blaxploitation parody "I'm Gonna Git You Sucka!" a few times and thought harder about *why* it's a good parody. Even then, that film, too, could have been improved.

When you do satire, you get the best results when you stick pretty closely to your target. The funniest moments in "The Hebrew Hammer" are those in which it really mirrors blaxploitation films. When it degenerates into really broad parody, lame social commentary, and random jokes about Jewish stereotypes, it goes downhill quickly.

That's too bad, because the principle cast really does do an excellent job. The villains are weaker than the heroes -- conceptually and by performance -- but I can't really blame the actors (much as I might be tempted to blame Andy Dick) because the villains are *too* over-the-top just as they're written.

Satire works as comedy because it keeps moving back and forth over the line of plausibility -- or, at least, the line of genre convention. "The Hebrew Hammer" has many good moments but, in the end, it strays too far, too often. There's about thirty minutes of really good material in there.