'Zohan' a wacky weave of just the right stuff
There's a spirit of avant-garde goofiness to the new Adam Sandler movie that sets it apart from his usual sophomoric work. Sprung from the fertile comic imaginations of Robert Smigel (Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog) and Judd Apatow (the grand vizier of film comedy), it exists in a slap-happy parallel universe.
Zohan is a top Israeli counterspy who bops down the boulevard like Borat imitating a disco-era Travolta snapping Chuck Norris moves.
He is the master of almost any situation, from a hacky-sack challenge to outswimming a jihadist on a jet ski. He leaps across rooftops with an agility that would make Spider-Man weep, and he never overcooks grilled fish. He is also a sex god (Sandler sports a codpiece the size of a cantaloupe). His greatest drawback is his consonant-gargling accent, which sounds like a collection of Scrabble tiles in a blender.
But Zohan is unfulfilled. He dreams of leaving the endless conflict of the Middle East for a peaceful life as a New York hairdresser. While pursuing the extra-dastardly evil terrorist known as The Phantom (John Turturro), he fakes his own death, stows away on a trans-Atlantic jet and wrangles an entry-level job at a run-down salon, his new mission in life to make the world "silky smooth."
He's great with a clipper and comb, but Zohan's real appeal is the additional services he gives his clients in the stockroom love pad. Zohan is a macho dynamo: He's so exuberantly proud of his body that he can't help doing a bump and grind with every rinse and fluff, and Sandler's campy body language is hilarious.
Full marks go to longtime Sandler collaborator Dennis Dugan (of "Chuck & Larry" and "The Benchwarmers"), whose direction never has been better. The film has a disorienting, daffy feel, swinging easily between the comic romance of Zohan and the pretty Palestinian owner of his salon (Emmanuelle Chriqui), and farcical action scenes that demolish half of Brooklyn.
"Zohan" tries for a message of social relevance with a nod to America as the land of multicultural coexistence, but its real value is in air-fluffing our cares away for a couple of hours.
This story was originally published June 6, 2008 at 2:44 AM with the headline "'Zohan' a wacky weave of just the right stuff."