You Don't Mess with the Zohan 2008

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: The ideas and some of the individual bits in Zohan work, but the crudeness of the execution undermines the results. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: Director Dennis Dugan knows his way around shin-whacking slapstick, and Sandler is mesmerizing. Read more

Andrea Gronvall, Chicago Reader: Though a bunch of the jokes are milked too thin, there are some absurdly goofy sight gags, and a lineup of fun, silly cameos by guests from Chris Rock to Mariah Carey. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: You Don't Mess With the Zohan is as messy as comedies come. Much of it, though, is an inspired, hilarious mess. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: This is one of those movie ideas that leaves you wondering what other ideas, exactly, were rejected in favor of this one, on the grounds of being too lame. Read more

Nathan Rabin, AV Club: If silliness equaled greatness, You Don't Mess With The Zohan would instantly join Citizen Kane and It's A Wonderful Life high atop the pantheon of great American films. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: It says something generally about the acting when Mariah Carey, playing herself, is as good or better than just about everyone else. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: If You Don't Mess With the Zohan isn't the bravest movie ever made about current Arab-Israeli relations, it's at least the bravest movie ever made about current Arab-Israeli relations featuring a former Mossad agent who shags Lainie Kazan. Read more

Amy Biancolli, Houston Chronicle: Zohan is both exponentially stranger than Larry and about twice as amusing. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Zohan coasts on its premise far more often than it fulfills it. But these days, you take your laughs where you find them. It's a pretty good scattershot comedy. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: Evidently there's something even harder to pull off than Middle Eastern peace: a steady run of jokes that deserve our laughter -- if You Don't Mess With the Zohan is an indicator. Read more

Adam Graham, Detroit News: Not that You Don't Mess with the Zohan is meant to be taken seriously, nor is it meant to be an intelligent discussion of world politics. But even as a zany comedy whose backdrop kinda-sorta happens to have some heft to it, it falters. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: Forget Monty Python, You Don't Mess With the Zohan is a circus that never really flies. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: Mess with The Zohan if you like, but be prepared for the consequences. 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 more

Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: You mess with the Zohan at the risk of your own IQ. But anyone who realizes or cares about such hazards has likely crossed the movie off the to-see list already. Read more

Amy Nicholson, I.E. Weekly: Zohan's a shallow character even by Sandler's standards, a bunch of crotch thrusts in search of a laugh. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: Crude, idiotic, ridiculous -- in other words, flat-out hilarious, and Sandler's funniest film in years. Read more

David Denby, New Yorker: This moviegoer has no trouble with lowbrow comedy. The problem with Zohan, however, is that it's like a kid who tells you a silly joke, gets a laugh, and immediately tells the same joke again. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: The direction by Dennis Dugan is flabby and dull -- like most of the hacks-for-hire who end up bringing a Sandler opus to the screen, and whose chief qualification seems to be the ability to shout 'Great, Adam! Great!' Read more

Bob Mondello, NPR.org: More annoying than the crassness, really, is the directorial sloppiness — which results in a virtually mirthless first half-hour. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: 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 more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: How much you like this will depend upon your appreciation for repeated jokes about hummus, gays, Zohan's crotch and his fondness for older women. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: Sandler and his crew -- Judd Apatow was a credited writer -- can't take this movie marriage of ambition and apathy down the aisle. Read more

Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer: While Zohan purveys the familiar Sandler mix of Jewvenile humor and geriatric love, it's less about a manic manchild than it is a raunchily wholesome message movie that deploys stereotypes in order to smash them. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: The result is another flabby comedy that gets its biggest laughs from thinly-covered penises and bare buttocks. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Sandler works so hard at this, and so shamelessly, that he battered down my resistance. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: You can tsk-tsk Sandler's penchant for dumb, crass humor all you want, but there's some meaning behind his madness. Is there nothing more human, more humbling, than the idea of smelly feet? Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: What might have been an ambitious effort becomes another lousy Sandler movie, endless and tiresome with a handful of funny moments. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: 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. Read more

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Read more

Philip Marchand, Toronto Star: There's a lot to be said for consumerism as a salve for historic wounds. Of course, there's also a drawback to our free market ways -- we get shoes made in China and movies like You Don't Mess with the Zohan. Read more

Richard Schickel, TIME Magazine: It is simultaneously a little bit vulgar and a little bit sentimental and comes out as a virtually bullet-proof blend for the mass, summertime audience. Read more

Ben Kenigsberg, Time Out: Read more

David Jenkins, Time Out: Another sloppily concocted and naggingly non-controversial pretext for Sandler to pelvic thrust his way though a succession of increasingly wacky fish-out-of-water situations. Read more

Christopher Orr, The New Republic: It's a difficult feat to manage irony without antecedent, so rather than opt for knowing caricature -- like, say, Adam Goldberg's The Hebrew Hammer -- Zohan mostly opts for empty farce: topical humor for people unfamiliar with the topic. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: If one-note jokes that drag on too long or are worked into the ground aren't enough to trigger comic nausea, then perhaps the myriad uses of hummus will do the trick in You Don't Mess With the Zohan. Read more

Brian Lowry, Variety: Zohan is a mess and then some. Read more

Stephen Hunter, Washington Post: In the end, the movie feels as if it exists only to display the Sandler's biceps. Read more