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

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 37 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 123 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Action | Comedy
Written by:
Adam Sandler
Robert Smigel
Judd Apatow
Directed by: Dennis Dugan
Release Date:
Theatrical: June 6, 2008
DVD: October 7, 2008
Running Time: minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
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)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Beverly Hills Ninja Big Daddy Happy Gilmore I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry National Security Saving Silverman The Benchwarmers
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
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.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine David Edelstein
Director Dennis Dugan knows his way around shin-whacking slapstick, and Sandler is mesmerizing.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
Less like "The Waterboy" and more like "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry," only funny.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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?
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Empire Ian Freer
A strange, mostly enjoyable mix of big political questions and crude comedy, Zohan overcomes its skeletal plotting and uneven gag ratio through Sandler?s sheer commitment to nonsense.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
Intermittently fresh and amusing in a low-down yet schmaltzy way.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
Imagine Warren Beatty in "Shampoo" by way of a Jewish Rambo.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
Forget "Monty Python," You Don't Mess With the Zohan is a circus that never really flies.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin
Spectacularly, unimpeachably, relentlessly preposterous.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
Directed with sledgehammer subtlety by Dennis Dugan ("I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry").
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
Sandler proves even a hardened Israeli secret service agent can be an imbecilic juvenile.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell
Might actually be the stupidest movie with good intentions that I've ever seen.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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?
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 5.4 (out of 10) based on 123 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Juned Ali gave it a10:
Exceptional movie, i enjoyed everything.
Bárbara E gave it an8:
Made me laugh out loud during the entire movie, which is no small feat.
guy ! gave it a0:
Wow, this movie was anything but funny. I honestly can't understand how anyone could like it. The only scene that actually made me laugh was the unconscious kid in the barber shop, but that's about it. Everything else in the entire movie is sloppily thrown together, embarrassingly awful, and left me with an unbearably awkward sense as I watched. Don't even bother picking up the dvd, I guarantee it will be a waste of time and money.
John gave it a0:
Like hearing a bad joke for 2 hours straight? If so, then this movie is for you.
David S. gave it a10:
This has to be one of funniest movies i've seen in a long time. Adam Sandler might be a little bit over the top in some movies. But this entire movie is just over the top, and really takes up some issues that is usually taboo. The movie does contain alot of sex, no actual nudity no wories. I think that is the reason for the bad reviews could unfortunetly also be that some people simple don't like jews. If anyone think that this movie is purely pro-Israeli probaganda think again, hard to say more without spoiling it. The movie is great, creative and well made with a budget of over 90 Million dollars. If you have just some crude humour element in you this movie is a must see.
Ray S gave it a0:
I knew this wasn't going to be award winning, but I have always enjoyed Adam's movies in the past. But this one was a REAL STINKER. I am embarrassed for all involved, beyond stupid.
Matt T gave it a10:
Love It. This is a great movie, full of giggles, in earlier reviews it was described as a ''Teen Movie'' ,well, im a teen, and I loved it.
