You Don't Mess with the Zohan

You Don't Mess with the Zohan is a 2008 American satirical action comedy film directed by Dennis Dugan; written by Adam Sandler, Robert Smigel, and Judd Apatow; produced by Sandler and Jack Giarraputo; and starring Adam Sandler, John Turturro, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Nick Swardson, Lainie Kazan, and Rob Schneider with supporting roles by Kevin Nealon, Ido Mosseri, Dave Matthews, Michael Buffer, Charlotte Rae, Sayed Badreya, and Daoud Heidami.

It is the fourth film to include a collaboration of Sandler as actor and Dugan as director. The film tells the story of an Israeli super soldier and counter-terrorist commando who fakes his own death to pursue his dream of becoming a hairstylist in the United States while contending with a crooked businessman, a superhuman terrorist arch-rival, and the grudge of a certain taxi driver.

Produced by Happy Madison Productions, You Don't Mess with the Zohan was released by Columbia Pictures in the United States on June 6, 2008. Despite the film's mixed reviews, it was a box office success, grossing $204.3 million worldwide from a $90 million budget.

Plot
Zohanele "Zohan" Dvir is an Israeli counter-terrorist commando reputed for his promiscuity and superhuman traits. Despite his success, he is tired of Israel's everlasting conflict; he dreams of leaving the military to become a hairstylist for John Paul Mitchell Systems in the United States, but his parents disapprove of him.

He is tasked with capturing his long-time arch-rival, Fatoush "Phantom" Hakbarah, a Palestinian militant who also possesses superhuman traits. After engaging Phantom in a fight, Zohan fakes his own death and subsequently smuggles himself to New York City. Phantom's supposed success in killing Zohan garners him much fame across the Arab world, leading him to open the "Phantom Muchentuchen" restaurant chain.

After arriving, Zohan immediately seeks a job at the local Paul Mitchell salon, but is turned down. Later, Zohan witnesses a traffic collision involving two motorists and a cyclist named Michael. One of the motorists starts bullying Michael and yells anti-Arab slurs at Zohan, who promptly beats him up. Michael subsequently befriends Zohan and takes him to his apartment, where he lives with his mother Gail.

Zohan encounters a fellow Israeli immigrant, Oori. He recognizes Zohan and vows to keep his true identity a secret before bringing him to an area in Lower Manhattan predominantly populated by other Middle Eastern immigrants, including Israeli Americans and Palestinian Americans.

At Oori's suggestion, Zohan attempts to secure a job at the struggling salon of a Palestinian woman named Dalia. Because he lacks experience, she only allows Zohan to sweep the salon's floors and he will not receive any pay because her salon is facing financial difficulties. When a stylist unexpectedly quits, one of the customers asks Zohan to cut her hair, and he accepts. Zohan's reputation rapidly spreads, causing Dalia's business to prosper. Dalia makes her rent payments in full, upsetting a corporate businessman, Grant Walbridge, who has been trying to buy out all the local tenants to build a mall.

Zohan is identified by a Palestinian-American taxi driver, Salim, who recognizes him. He meets with his friends Hamdi and Nasi, convincing them to help him kill Zohan. After unsuccessfully attempt to contact Hezbollah, Salim contacts Phantom in Amman, Jordan. He threatens to publicly disclose the truth about Zohan being alive, but Phantom makes a deal with him and prepares to find Zohan himself.

Meanwhile, Zohan has fallen in love with Dalia, but she rejects Zohan because of his military service. Zohan decides to quit, hoping to keep her safe from any inter-ethnic strife. He later confronts Phantom in a championship Hacky Sack game sponsored by Walbridge. However, the confrontation is cut short when he learns that the Middle Eastern neighborhood is being attacked by unknown assailants.

As their businesses burn, Zohan calms the Israelis and the Palestinians, as both sides are blaming each other for the violence. When Phantom appears, he confronts Zohan, who refuses to fight after being deeply inspired by Dalia's pacifism. Dalia then discloses that she is Phantom's sister and convinces her brother to cooperate with Zohan against the arsonists, who are revealed to be a group of white supremacists on Walbridge's payroll. The Phantom works with Zohan to save the block. The arsonists are defeated, and Walbridge is arrested by the police; however, the overexcited Phantom accidentally destroys all the remaining shops with his superhuman screams.

With the Israelis and Palestinians now working together, the block is rebuilt and transformed into a collectively-owned mall. Zohan and Dalia, having now married, open a beauty salon together. Zohan's parents visit from Israel and approve of his new job and lifestyle.

Cast

 * Cameos

Production
Sandler, Robert Smigel, and Judd Apatow wrote the first draft of the script in 2000, but the movie was delayed after the events of 9/11 because those involved felt that the subject would be too sensitive. Apatow left the project after the first draft in 2000 to work on his show Undeclared and had, for the most part, not been involved in the project since. The film is based in part on the story of Nezi Arbib, an Israeli soldier who after his service moved to southern California and opened a hair salon. Sandler trained with Arbib and his brothers, also former soldiers, for two weeks to learn hairstyling and work with clients.

The movie features elements that first appeared in the SNL sketches "Sabra Shopping Network" and "Sabra Price Is Right", which starred Tom Hanks and were written by Robert Smigel. They originated lines such as 'Sony guts' and 'Disco, Disco, good, good'. The first sketch is also notable for featuring one of Adam Sandler's first uncredited television appearances while the second featured Sandler, Schneider, Smigel and Kevin Nealon in supporting parts. Robert Smigel worked with Sandler on past films including Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, and Little Nicky, but this was the first time in which he was credited for helping to write the script. He was an executive producer on the film which allowed him to further contribute to the movie's comedic sensibility.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz commented that the movie was known in Hollywood circles as "the Israeli movie". Haaretz noted that while "Israeli actors were rushing to audition [for the movie]," the response among Arab actors was far from enthusiastic. Emmanuelle Chriqui, who played Zohan's Palestinian love interest, was raised as an Orthodox Jew. The film poked fun at the popularity of hummus in Israeli culture. In the movie, characters used it to brush their teeth and as a method to douse the flames of a fire, as well as a hair care product.

Soundtrack
Rupert Gregson-Williams composed the film's score, which he recorded with the Hollywood Studio Symphony at the Sony Scoring Stage in April 2008. The soundtrack contains many songs in Hebrew, mostly by the popular Israeli band Hadag Nahash, the psychedelic trance duo Infected Mushroom, and Dana International. The film features "Strip" by Adam Ant, "Look on the Floor (Hypnotic Tango) (Angel City Remix)" by Bananarama, the Ace of Base songs "Hallo Hallo" and "Beautiful Life", the Rockwell song Somebody's Watching Me and Mariah Carey songs "Fantasy" and "I'll Be Lovin' U Long Time".

The soundtrack contains (near the end) music re-arranged for the movie by Julius Dobos, based on the song "Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy Aaja" from the Bollywood movie Disco Dancer (1982) starring Mithun Chakraborty.

Reception
Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 37% based on 190 reviews. The site's consensus is that the film "features intermittent laughs, and will please Sandler diehards, but after a while the leaky premise wears thin." Metacritic gives the film a rating of 54 out of 100, based on 37 reviews—indicating mixed or average reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a grade B− on scale of A to F.

John Podhoretz, in The Weekly Standard, wrote that the movie has a "mess" of a plot and features, "as usual for Sandler, plenty of dumb humor of the sort that gives dumb humor a bad name, but that delights his 14-year-old-boy fan base." But the film also has an "unusual" amount of "tantalizing comic ideas" so that "every 10 minutes or so, it makes you explode with laughter." Entertainment Weekly gave the movie a C+ grade, calling it "another 'mess' from Sandler" which is, unlike Monty Python, a "circus that never flies".

On the positive side, Time called the film to be a "laff scuffle". Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, and called it "a mighty hymn of and to vulgarity, and either you enjoy it, or you don't." Ebert admitted "I found myself enjoying it a surprising amount of the time, even though I was thoroughly ashamed of myself." David Edelstein of New York Magazine went as far as to say "Adam Sandler is mesmerizing". A.O. Scott of The New York Times said it was "the finest post-Zionist action-hairdressing sex comedy I have ever seen."

Box office
You Don't Mess with the Zohan grossed $38 million on its opening weekend, ranked second behind Kung Fu Panda. , it reached a US tally of $100 million. The film grossed $204.3 million worldwide.

Home media
The film was released on DVD on October 7, 2008, with a 2-disc unrated edition, a single-disc unrated edition, and a theatrical edition, as well as a Blu-ray edition and UMD for PSP. It has sold over 1.2 million DVD units gathering revenue of $26 million.