Now Playing
Critics & Publications
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

sort by name

sort by score

34 10,000 B.C.
55 Baby Mama
62 Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, The
36 College Road Trip
xx Dark Knight, The
31 Deception
41 Drillbit Taylor
57 Forbidden Kingdom, The
67 Forgetting Sarah Marshall
54 Get Smart
49 Hancock
34 Happening, The
57 Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay
xx Hellboy II: The Golden Army
71 Horton Hears a Who!
61 Incredible Hulk, The
65 Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
79 Iron Man
35 Jumper
73 Kung Fu Panda
24 Love Guru, The
37 Made of Honor
xx Mamma Mia!
58 Mist, The
48 National Treasure: Book of Secrets
55 Nim's Island
22 Postal
69 Redbelt
44 Ruins, The
53 Sex and the City: The Movie
76 Shine a Light
37 Shutter
37 Speed Racer
61 Stop Loss
47 Strangers, The
55 Street Kings
33 Superhero Movie
93 WALL-E
64 Wanted
36 What Happens in Vegas...
54 You Don't Mess with the Zohan

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

sort by name

sort by score

83 Alexandra
80 Band's Visit, The
76 Beauty in Trouble
47 Bella
80 Bigger, Stronger, Faster*
59 Blind Mountain
55 Bra Boys
60 Brick Lane
70 Caramel
49 Children of Huang Shi, The
83 Chop Shop
83 Chris & Don. A Love Story
78 Counterfeiters, The
52 Diminished Capacity
64 Dreams with Sharp Teeth
73 Duchess of Langeais, The
84 Edge of Heaven, The
52 Elsa & Fred
79 Encounters at the End of the World
62 Expired
64 Fall, The
51 Finding Amanda
57 Flawless
86 Flight of the Red Balloon, The
63 Foot Fist Way, The
60 Fugitive Pieces
45 Full Grown Men
55 Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts
69 Go-Getter, The
74 Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
63 Gunnin for that #1 Spot
68 Heartbeat Detector
34 Holding Trevor
68 Honeydripper
55 Irina Palm
69 Jellyfish
60 Jihad for Love, A
68 Kabluey
62 Kiss the Bride
63 Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
82 Last Mistress, The
38 Life Before Her Eyes, The
70 Love Songs
64 Married Life
30 Meet Bill
33 Miss Conception
53 Mister Lonely
74 Mongol
52 Mother of Tears, The
52 My Blueberry Nights
71 My Brother Is an Only Child
84 My Winnipeg
61 On the Rumba River
69 Operation Filmmaker
61 OSS 117: Cairo - Nest of Spies
83 Paranoid Park
72 Priceless
51 Promotion, The
55 Quid Pro Quo
29 Red Roses and Petrol
79 Reprise
71 Roman de gare
56 Sangre de mi sangre
51 Savage Grace
76 Shotgun Stories
66 Son of Rambow
70 Standard Operating Procedure
62 Stuck
72 Surfwise
81 Tell No One
56 Then She Found Me
xx Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic
71 To the Limit
54 Tracey Fragments, The
70 Trumbo
72 Tuya's Marriage
83 U2 3D
56 Unknown Woman
86 Up the Yangtze
79 Visitor, The
62 Wackness, The
37 War, Inc.
64 Water Lilies
66 When Did You Last See Your Father?
55 Without the King
72 Woman on the Beach
64 XXY
67 Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
75 Young@Heart

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

You Don't Mess with the Zohan
Columbia Pictures (Sony)


5.4

based on 36 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 79 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

FILM:

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for crude and sexual content throughout, language and nudity

Starring Adam Sandler, John Turturro, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Nick Swardson, and Rob Schneider

Zohan is an Israeli commando who fakes his own death in order to pursue his dream: becoming a hairstylist in New York. (Sony Pictures)

GENRE(S):	Action \| Comedy
WRITTEN BY:	Adam Sandler Robert Smigel Judd Apatow
DIRECTED BY:	Dennis Dugan
RELEASE DATE:	Theatrical: June 6, 2008
RUNNING TIME:	minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

As hig concepts go, You Don't Mess With the Zohan" takes the cake.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

Director Dennis Dugan knows his way around shin-whacking slapstick, and Sandler is mesmerizing.

Time Richard Schickel

The result is a laff riot. Well, all right, a laff scuffle -- a picture that isn't quite as funny as it might be, but is as funny as it needs to be.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

The movie "Munich" should have been. At the very least, it's got to be the first picture to use smelly-feet jokes as a means of parsing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But more than that, it's a mainstream movie that dares to make jokes about the kinds of complex political realities that most of us don't dare bring up at dinner parties.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

On screen it looks crazed, but the comic energy is huge, if indiscriminate, and Mr. Sandler's performance -- think Topol doing Charles Boyer -- can be as delicate as it is gleefully vulgar or grotesque.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Sandler works so hard at this, and so shamelessly, that he battered down my resistance. Like a Jerry Lewis out of control, he will do, and does, anything to get a laugh. No thinking adult should get within a mile of this film. I must not have been thinking. For my sins, I laughed.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Essentially, You Don't Mess With the Zohan isn't all that different in tone and sensibility from Sandler's previous films, but he's really trying in this one, and the effort pays off.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Nothing has brought me more cheap pleasure at a movie this year than the sight of shampoo and conditioner bottles falling off a rocking wall while comedian Alec Mapa, as a fellow stylist, tries to keep a straight face. He does a much better job than I did.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

Brazenly self-confident in its refusal to pander to the imagined sensitivity of its audience. In this it differs notably from Albert Brooks's "Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World," which approached some of the same topics with misplaced thoughtfulness and tact.

The Hollywood Reporter Sheri Linden

The comedy star's legions of fans will welcome the cheerfully crude proceedings as a return to silliness after several earnest, lower-key character turns. The melange of Middle East diplomacy, action absurdity, sexual healing and, when in doubt, hummus, wavers between muscular and middling. It's a surefire hit.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Sandler's first collaboration with co-writer and current Hollywood comedy godhead Judd Apatow, is a crazed, delightfully bizarre return to form for Sandler.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Less like "The Waterboy" and more like "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry," only funny.

USA Today Claudia Puig

The laughs are hit and miss and the movie is ho-hummus.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

This picture is to comedy what carpet bombing is to aerial warfare: The onslaught is so relentless that occasional direct hits on the funny bone are a statistical guarantee.

Los Angeles Times Mark Olsen

As another run-of-the-mill Sandler movie, it is better than most. At this point it seems a little foolish to want, let alone expect, "more" from the guy. If he can't be bothered to put more effort into his films, why should anybody else?

The New Yorker David Denby

An obscene, ridiculous, and occasionally very funny movie, and if it ever gets to the Middle East it will roil the falafel tables on both sides of the Arab-Israeli divide.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Intermittently fresh and amusing in a low-down yet schmaltzy way.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

Imagine Warren Beatty in "Shampoo" by way of a Jewish Rambo.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Forget "Monty Python," You Don't Mess With the Zohan is a circus that never really flies.

Village Voice Ella Taylor

If nothing else--and there isn't much else--You Don't Mess With the Zohan pronounces the Middle East fair game for absurdist comedy.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

An Israeli-on-Arab version of "Shampoo," You Don’t Mess With the Zohan is terrible in many ways, and shoddy in every way that has to do with filmmaking. But politically it's sort of interesting.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

A little like watching an episode of the TV show of which Adam Sandler is an alum: "Saturday Night Live." Zohan feels like an extended collection of skits tied together by a flimsy umbrella story.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

Spectacularly, unimpeachably, relentlessly preposterous.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

The movie is gross but not unfunny as it covers the Zohan's rise through hair culture, aided by his steamy heterosexuality, his lack of inhibition and his stereotypical career aggressiveness, until the old ladies are lined up all the way to the Bronx for a few minutes of bliss in the Zohan's chair.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

By the end of the film, the cliché of everybody getting along is reduced to both sides working together in the ultimate monument to capitalism: a mall. Some message.

Chicago Reader Andrea Gronvall

Though a bunch of the jokes are milked too thin, there are some absurdly goofy sight gags--like a hacky sack game enlisting a family pet--and a lineup of fun, silly cameos by guests from Chris Rock to Mariah Carey.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Directed with sledgehammer subtlety by Dennis Dugan ("I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry").

New York Daily News Joe Neumaier

His humor works best when it's throw-away, but "Zohan" throws everything up to get a yuck. It's a shock to see how many "yuck!" moments Sandler settles for.

NPR Bob Mondello

What's more annoying than the crassness, really, is the directorial sloppiness that results in a virtually mirthless first half-hour and a slow build to chuckles thereafter.

Variety Brian Lowry

The off-the-wall comedy of Robert Smigel and Judd Apatow leaves a mark on the script, but it would require a talent of Peter Sellers' magnitude to conquer this material, and he's not around.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Sandler proves even a hardened Israeli secret service agent can be an imbecilic juvenile.

Premiere Ryan Stewart

To find a comparison for You Don't Mess With the Zohan in Adam Sandler's filmography, you have to go back to 2000's "Little Nicky," a film with a fantasy slant that allowed for jokes of unencumbered silliness.

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

In truth, there's not much point to reviewing Adam Sandler comedies. They're almost always widely panned, and yet still manage to earn well over $100 million domestically. Don’' Mess with the Zohan looks to continue both trends, even if exaggerated Yiddish accents and sex with the elderly only take one so far.

Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell

Might actually be the stupidest movie with good intentions that I've ever seen.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Serious intent may be lurking somewhere in there, but it's buried under layers of stupidity - not just stupid jokes, which is what you want from Sandler, but also stupid, shallow thinking.

TV Guide Ken Fox

At a time when the images of Arab-Americans are already largely negative, do we really need more violently temperamental, bomb throwing men in turbans and beards?

The average user rating for this movie is 5.4 (out of 10) based on 79 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Dan M gave it an8:
Ok, first off, if you didnt like this movie, go watch Cloverfield, then i guarantee you will give "You Dont Mess With The Zohan" a 7,8, or 9. Enough said.

J E. gave it a10:
Come on--political over the top satire is funny.

Will H. gave it a6:
Eh. Funny in places, stupid in others. A teen movie, certainly.

Jessica S. gave it a0:
Never before have I walked out of a movie. I had to leave the theater after about 30 minutes, it was terrible. The [lack of] acting, the [lack of] plot, the [lack of] humor. I wouldn't watch this if someone payed me too.

Robb H. gave it a10:
This was one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. My face hurt from laughing for two hours. I follow Israel closely, so I probably get and appreciate the humor here more than those who don't know a lot about Israel. But judging from those in the theater, everyone was laughing pretty hard. Enjoy.

Lindsey D. gave it a0:
This was the dumbest movie I have seen thus far in my life. The only thing I have learned from this movie is that trailers may not give an accurate perspective of the movies plot line. The movie was ONLY sex jokes, with few minor legitimately funny jokes. The racial jokes were neither funny, nor appropriate at this current time and age, where those concepts are still rather numb from recent events including 9/11. These jokes should NOT be made yet. Then there's all the sex jokes. Our society generally frowns on people who do actually make these jokes in everyday life and now they're putting these jokes in movies?! What is that?! How is this movie PG-13. This is easily an R rated film. No one can say that Rent, Miss Congeniality, or any other PG -13 movies for sexual content are on parr with this disgusting film. There was no way to tell on any level that the jokes would exist from any trailers, movie pictures, etc. Our society doesn't need futile, dirt movies. Our society needs inspiring movies, legitimately funny movies, and even stupid movies, but this? This is lower than dirt. It is not worth your money or your time. Adam Sandler is an idiot for presenting this film to us like we're idiots that love such grotesque concepts. In no way is this appropriate for 13 yr olds, all the way to 18 yr olds. (preferably no audience) Save yourself from the mistake I made by seeing this movie and don't waste time or money on this worthless piece of junk.

A Movie Critic gave it an8:
Actually a very funny movie with very funny performances and a good message. Among Sandler's funniest.

You Don't Mess with the Zohan Columbia Pictures (Sony)

You Don't Mess with the Zohan
Columbia Pictures (Sony)