The Hebrew Hammer

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.

I picked up this movie because it caught my eye as movie with a Jewish comedy focus - something I had not seen before.

I approached this film with an open mind, and was interested in the way it began. The opening is well put together, and the first half of the film gave me many reasons to laugh, and this is good.

However, the humor soon became repetitive, the plot became confused and strained, and I realized I was no longer enjoying the film. I have tried to avoid saying this, but the movie became rather "cheap" - not a bad thing for a comedy if the humor holds up, but it didn't. I confess that I may have missed some of the humour, not being Jewish myself, and having little experience with Jewish culture. However, considering how heavily telegraphed the bulk of the humour was in this film, it's unlikely I missed much.

The idea is a good one, and perhaps if a little more thought was put into it the film would have been watchable all the way through. I wish I could give the movie a higher rating, but strictly speaking it would have been better as a TV series or as a series of skits. There was just not enough worthwhile fresh material for a full-length movie.

One thing to say about the casting - the lead role looked as if it had been designed with Ben Stiller in mind, but I don't think the movie would have been any more worthwhile if he had been in it.

If I had my eyes closed at the opening, I might have though that I was hearing Isaac Hayes introducing Shaft. What I got, however, was the Jewish version of Shaft - The Hebrew Hammer.

It plays like a blaxploitation film of the seventies, but it's purpose is to slam every Jewish stereotype they can. They added a lot of Black stereotypes as well, as the Hammer joined with the Kwanzaa League to defeat the evil Santa that was trying to wipe out Hanukkah.

Adam Goldberg was good as the Hammer, and Mario Van Peebles as his Black partner. Andy Dick as Santa's son, not so much. Nora Dunn was perfect as the Hammer's mother.

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?

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.