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In
the picture
You Don't Mess With the Zohan***
*ing Adam Sandler, Emmanuelle Chriqui,
Rob Shneider
Directed by Dennis Dugan
Tagline: Rinse. Lather. Save the world. |
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Either
the world wide movie-watching audience has suddenly undergone a massive
hormone swing and has become super-sensitive or movies are simply
getting more and more offensive as we speak. Jodhaa Akbar offended
the Rajput; Singh in Kinng has offended the Sikhs. Love Guru offended
the Hindus and even Kung Fu Panda offended the Chinese whereas Tropic
Thunder has offended the disabled. Pick up any movie and it has offended
someone or the other. A single line from the song 'Aaja Nachle' in
which Madhuri sings that the 'lohaars' (ironsmiths) now see themselves
as 'sonhaars' (goldsmiths) offended the ironsmiths as they found it
degrading. Pick up any Indian movie that has a Salim, Qazi or Hussein
as the evil Muslim villain (and there are many to choose from) and
it has surely offended the Muslims. Controversy certainly is the 'in'
thing in films today.
The amazing thing is that Adam Sandler's You Don't Mess With the Zohan,
despite tipping its toes in controversy, does not offend. It pokes
a finger at Keffaiyah clad Arabs (Palestinians to be exact) as well
as it gets a kick out of trigger happy Israelis. As Zohan's dad proudly
points out to him: "You're like Rembrandt, only with a grenade!"
It also brings in the United States of America as the cause of all
Middle Eastern fighting. "My bush needs trimming" or "My
bush needs to be cut down to size" are obvious innuendos spoken
by Zohan with great pun intended. But in all its humour, the film
does not pass judgements or play up propaganda, which makes it inoffensive
at large. It picks up on an internationally 'hot' topic that is war
between Israel and Palestine and plays 'cool' with it.
Zohan Dvir is an Israeli Special Forces soldier who is sick and tired
of all the fighting despite being 'The Best' in the forces. He is
so good that he would easily put South Indian superstar Rajnikanth
to shame. Zohan can catch bullets in his nostrils as easily as he
can catch fish between his buttocks. And he does both. He is also
the ladies' man, having flings left, right and centre. But his secret
dream is cutting hair and "making people silky smooth";
unfortunately his parents cannot relate to it. They perceive "cutting
hair" the same as being gay. So when the lights turn out every
night, Zohan pulls out his outdated Paul Mitchell book which he memorizes
snip by snip. |
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Frustrated in his homeland, he eventually fakes his own death
at the hands of The Phantom (his Palestinian counterpart) and
secretly migrates to New York to pursue his dream.
As luck would have it, after days and days of aimless unemployment,
he lands a job at a run-down salon owned by a beautiful Palestinian
girl. She would never hire an Israeli so it's a good thing that
he has told everyone that he's Australian (and no one challenges
that despite his distinctive middle-eastern accent). No one
even suspects his background when he fights as smoothly as the
Matrix or Terminator. "Are you bionic?" a young American
girl asks him in awe. "No, no…" he replies.
"I only like girls." Despite his coolness, Zohan is
a simpleton who is stuck in the eighties. It's evident in his
hairstyle and his favourite dance moves a'la John Travolta that
would put Govinda to shame.
Zohan and his employer Dalia (Emmanuelle Chriqui) fall in love
and their world comes tumbling down when Zohan's cover is blown
by some old Palestinian taxi driver who remembers him for stealing
his goat. At that point the neighborhood is witnessing riots
between the Israelis and Palestinians and they finally conclude
that the 'axis of evil' isn't the ethnic friction between their
communities, its Walbrige, the American realtor who wants them
to fight and vacate the neighborhood so that he can build a
mall over it. And the whole neighborhood of 'ragheads' discovers
that as the melody of "Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy….aaja,
aaja, aaja" (From the soundtrack of Mithun Chakraborty's
Disco Dancer) plays in the background.
The movie is hilarious if you can take it with a pinch of salt.
The comedy is senseless and whacky and borrows a lot from the
ethos of Borat. In fact in more than one way, Borat and Zohan
are bhai bhai. If you like one, you will love the other. It
is also incredibly cheesy, from the references to "All
humans are equal in New York" to the way Zohan falls in
love. If translated in Bollywood, this film could easily pass
as any Akshay Kumar senseless comedy, only better as it actually
can make you laugh.
-- Aamna Haider Isani
*YUCK
**WHATEVER
***GOOD
****SUPER
*****AWESOME
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