Zohi Sdom

You know The Simpsons, so they made a movie. Was the movie better than the series? No way. This is the case here, but add lack of funds as a "bonus" and you receive a yawning experience. The movie cannot carry itself. It is just an expansion of a gag, usually no longer than 5 minutes. The movie was done for the summer, that is no shame, but it could have been written better. The main characters lack development, and the plot goes nowhere. But worst of all is the absolute lack of visual effects, so needed in a movie revolving around the destruction of Sodom. I say if you don't have the money to make the necessary visual effects, don't do the movie. Set it up in a place where there is no need for expensive effects. The foreign audience won't be able to watch this movie, because it is absolutely out of context for those unfamiliar with the TV series, which this movie is based on.The Israeli audience, such as myself, was allured to the theaters by the aggressive promotion and a high anticipation. Disappointment was the outcome, unfortunately.

This is Sodom made to resemble the Monty Python movies. Of course, there's no Monty Python here, and that's probably the reason for the low ratings. The action takes place in the biblical city of Sodom and tells about Lot and his family. Of course, things don't go according to the biblical story and... I won't give away what happens. There are enough funny moments in the film, playing with Jewish and the history. There are a lot of jokes, especially for a person familiar with the biblical story. The graphics are average, the effects, as far as they exist, are elementary, but the charm of the film lies elsewhere.

I see that my rating is the highest of those who have written a review and that is normal. A comedy especially about religion can never achieve the ratings of an epic religious story repeating the beliefs of believers.

To Harry: Maybe it was funnier for me, stuck here in the Chicago diaspora without knowing anything about the TV version. I truly enjoyed all the silly stuff for its own sake, & for the rest of the day, every time I snuggled up to hubby & sang the sugar-sweet "Ha Echad," we both cracked up.

Dov Navon and Tal Friedman (who were so funny together in "The Schwartz Dynasty") have wonderful chemistry again as "Mr and Mrs Lot;" sad-sack Navon providing the perfect counter-weight as Friedman flies ever-higher over the top. You're probably right in suggesting that I missed some of the "local jokes," but I think anyone with a Jewish funny-bone will know more than enough.

'Zohi Sdom' is a feature film spin-off of 'Eretz Nehederet', Israel's most successful sketch comedy show for nearly a decade now; like in a National Lampoon movie, the cast of the TV show play various roles in a kinda-linear storyline.

There was a strange attempt to market 'Zohi Sdom' as a local version of Monty Python's Life of Brian. But other than the fact that it's set in biblical times, there's absolutely no similarity (other than the lead character's outfit). There's no real satire in 'Zohi Sdom'; a shame, because with a feature film the writers had the chance to make satire more biting and more universal than what they could afford to do on network television. Instead, they used that opportunity to have more sex jokes. The humor in 'Zohi Sdom' is a neverending series of gags, none of which have any bearing on the story, and most of which are anachronism gags in the level of The Flintstones (only with a lot more sex).

The movie does have a few chuckles, but the humor is so local as to never have any real impact anywhere but Israel in the early 21st century, which is a waste. It does actually have a pretty decent production, and some good actors - Assi Cohen's performance is deliciously hammy (he clearly realized how dumb the script was), and local legendary satirist/journalist Mordechai Kirschenbaum as Abraham is one of the movie's few saving graces. But ultimately it's a failed attempt, which owes all its success to marketing, and will - I believe and hope - disappear into anonymity.

Even in Israel, the entertainment industry is not known for piousness; so give them a Bible story as a basis for satire and you might fear you'll get back pointless and ignorant mocking. But most of the time, the humor in ZOHI SDOME shuns nihilism and springs from a long-standing Jewish view of the Bible in which none of the heroes is considered perfect and any manifestation of God is considered a specialized metaphor. Here Abraham, famous for bargaining with God over the fate of the city of Sodom, finds in God a bargainer straight from the desk of a mobile phone company or insurance agency. Lot, the righteous man in Sodom, is another in a long line of sad sacks that Dov Navon has played in his career, but the movie takes his character seriously and finds an anchor in it among the fast-flung jokes. The movie's cast comes largely from a popular Israeli TV series of skits and jokes, and the advance publicity tried nervously to attract a crowd while cautioning that this is no wide-screen version of the TV show but something else entirely. It is, and whereas the TV show strives to keep up with the nightly or at least the weekly news, ZOHI SDOME is written to be almost as funny years from now. And it probably will be, almost.