You Don't Mess With the Zohan

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When it comes to sophomoric humour, you’re either in or you’re out.

At 41, 48 and, again, 41 respectively, it’s a safe bet that Adam Sandler, Robert Smigel and Judd Apatow aren’t going to be growing up anytime soon. Smigel may be the unsung hero behind a great deal of modern comedy (he’s been an essential Saturday Night Live writer and is the man behind Triumph the Insult Comic Dog) and Apatow may have recently received considerable credit as a comic genius, but there’s no doubt that all three writers get a good laugh out of some pretty base material.

Produced by Sandler’s Happy Madison productions, a name itself alluding to two mighty sophomoric Sandler comedies, You Don’t Mess with the Zohan is a chance for all three writers to let Sandler loose in a world of mugging, hyperbolic racist caricatures and sex with old ladies.

So: are you in, or are you out?

Starting with a beachside sequence with Israeli counter-intelligence operative Zohan demonstrating his impossible machismo and two — count ’em, two — jokes about Zohan stuffing something in his ass, Zohan dives straight into a scene of equally impossible action heroics. After shedding tears over a Paul Mitchell guide to hairstyling and a confrontation with his archrival (John Turturro), Zohan decides to follow his dream and emigrate to the United States to become a hairstylist. Naturally, a few one-off gay jokes ensue.

Stateside, the plot revolves around Zohan’s attempts to become a bona fide stylist, along with the sexual conquest of his elderly patrons, a half-baked plot by an Arabic cabbie played in lighter black face by Rob Schneider and a thin “evil developer” plot.

Not surprisingly, Zohan’s plot is essentially a sloppy collection of gags whose strength depends entirely on your willingness to laugh at one of three jokes: Zohan is inhumanly strong (or virile, or fast), Zohan has sex with an old lady, or Zohan and friends’ foreign mannerisms are absurd. Formulaic though they might be, they’re also in the hands of at least two excellent comedy writers, and watching Zohan’s severed hand crawl off a table, stab a Palestinian torturer and then chug a bottle of Israeli soda might just be worth the price of admission. And hey: old lady sex.

This isn’t smug dismissal. Sandler, Smigel and Apatow are all seasoned comedy writers who’ve found their niches. They like their sophomoric humour and their audiences do, too, and somewhere near the top (or bottom, depending on your perspective) of their juvenile games they’ve shoved in the kind of comedy that would snicker at the term “shoved in.”

Because with this kind of comedy, you’re either in or you’re out. And in. And out. And in. And out….