FILM REVIEW:Watch out, he’s packing a blow-dryer

VIEW THIS PAGE

Let me be blunt: You Don’t Mess With the Zohan is the finest post-Zionist action-hairdressing sex comedy I have ever seen. That it is the only one I have ever seen — and why is that? what cultural deficiency or ideological conspiracy has prevented this genre from flourishing? — does not much detract from my judgment.

Directed by Dennis Dugan from a script by Judd Apatow, Robert Smigel and Adam Sandler (who also stars), Zohan has its share of scatology, crude sexual humor and queasy homophobia, the basic elements from which male-centered Hollywood comedies are constructed these days. There are supporting roles for stand-up comedians (Ahmed Ahmed, Nick Swardson) and Saturday Night Live veterans (Rob Schneider, Kevin Nealon), a few oddball cameos (Shelley Berman, Chris Rock) and exquisitely random “as themselves” appearances by John McEnroe and Mariah Carey. Why not? Less amusingly, there are also some lumpy computer-assisted special effects, an overstuffed plot and a scattering of awkwardly executed gags. But a lot of the crude bodily-function jokes are actually pretty funny, not least because they are supplemented by more hummus-based humor than you might have thought possible.

You might also think, as I certainly did, that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict presents a singularly unpromising source of laughs. But as Yitzhak Rabin once said, enough of blood and tears. He did not go on to propose semen, urine, shampoo or hummus as substitutes, but those are, for Dugan, Smigel, Apatow and Sandler, the substances that come most readily to hand. (So does a made-up but scarily realistic Israeli soft drink called Fizzy-Bubbeleh.)

And the filmmakers spray all this stuff around in a brave and noble cause. US diplomatic efforts have so far proved inadequate to the task of bringing peace to the Middle East, but You Don’t Mess With the Zohan taps into deeper and more durable sources of American global power in its quest for a plausible end to hostilities. Ancient grievances and festering hatreds are no match for the forces of sex, money, celebrity and exuberant, unapologetic stupidity.

Zohan (Sandler) certainly seems to think so, though he might express his views differently, and certainly with a thicker accent. A highly skilled military operative who specializes in counterterrorism, he is basically a less anguished version of the character played by Eric Bana in Munich. The brilliant opening sequence places him in a tableau that would bring a tear to Theodor Herzl’s eye. Whether it would be a tear of joy or dismay I will leave to more seasoned polemicists, but there is something both appealing and authentic about a vision of the Jewish state on its 60th birthday that emphasizes lithe young bodies frolicking, flirting and playing Hacky Sack on the beach. If you will it, it is no dream.

But only part of Zohan’s life is carefree, and it’s the other part — the job that requires heavy weapons, deadly stealth and hand-to-hand combat with a superterrorist called the Phantom (John Turturro) — that drives him into the diaspora. Zohan may have a picture of Moshe Dayan on his bedroom wall, but his real idol is Paul Mitchell, the American hair-care mogul whose outdated styles Zohan studies as if they were pages of the Talmud. He wants to stop fighting and cut “silky smooth” hair. And so, like everyone else with a dream, he migrates to New York, where he finds an entry-level job at a salon run by a pretty Palestinian named Dalia (Emmanuelle Chriqui).