Yesterday I went to go see “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan” movie with one of my cousins. It’s another one of Adam Sandler’s satirical movies: this time, about the tension between the Jewish and the Muslim people in Israel/Palestine. Of course, there was humor in it: Sandler plays the protagonist, Zohan, who is a counter-terrorist wanting to follow his lifelong dream of becoming a hairstylist (“I want to make people silky smooth”). Everyone around him thinks his way of life should be to continue on as a counter-terrorist, that being a hairstylist was a froufrou job. So Zohan fakes his own death and runs off to NYC, where he tries to start his dream career into the hairstyling world. At first it’s a tough road, but as usual, things end up working out in the end. A small cameo appearance by Mariah Carey occurs near the end of the movie.
I thought the movie was played out pretty well; Sandler and his fellow actors all seemed to do pretty well with Middle Eastern accents–the accents were convincing enough to me anyway. They played up on some stereotypes, but as usual there was a moral to the whole story. I liked the movie, at least for its humor if not other aspects.
Watching this movie made me really wonder though: Is Adam Sandler an eccentric genius? I feel like his more recent movies tackle some rather sticky issues (take last year’s “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry” about gay marriage). Somehow, Sandler is always able to weave a crazy satirical story and in the end give it some sort of clever storyline. The endings may be cheesy, but they work.