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You Don't Mess with the Zohan (2008)

tomatometer

36

Average Rating: 4.6/10
Reviews Counted: 181
Fresh: 66 | Rotten: 115

You Don't Mess With the Zohan features intermittent laughs, and will please Sandler diehards, but after awhile the leaky premise wears thin.

38

Average Rating: 5.3/10
Critic Reviews: 37
Fresh: 14 | Rotten: 23

You Don't Mess With the Zohan features intermittent laughs, and will please Sandler diehards, but after awhile the leaky premise wears thin.

audience

50

liked it
Average Rating: 3.2/5
User Ratings: 362,196

My Rating

Movie Info

Judd Apatow teams up with his former roommate Adam Sandler to write a star comedy vehicle for the actor in You Don't Mess With the Zohan, the tale of an Israeli commando who fakes his own death so he can follow his dream -- to be a hairstylist in New York City. I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry's Dennis Dugan directs for Happy Madison Productions and Columbia Pictures. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, Rovi

PG-13, 1 hr. 53 min.

Comedy

Robert Smigel, Adam Sandler, Judd Apatow

Oct 7, 2008

$100.0M

Sony Pictures

Cast

All Critics (184) | Top Critics (37) | Fresh (67) | Rotten (118) | DVD (7)

The ideas and some of the individual bits in Zohan work, but the crudeness of the execution undermines the results.

October 18, 2008 Full Review Source: Chicago Tribune | Comment
Chicago Tribune
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Zohan is both exponentially stranger than Larry and about twice as amusing.

July 18, 2008 Full Review Source: Houston Chronicle | Comment
Houston Chronicle
Top Critic IconTop Critic

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.

June 16, 2008 Full Review Source: New Yorker | Comment
New Yorker
Top Critic IconTop Critic

I'm all for politically incorrect humor, but there has to be humor in the political incorrectness, and I didn't get it here.

June 16, 2008 Comment
Ebert & Roeper
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Director Dennis Dugan knows his way around shin-whacking slapstick, and Sandler is mesmerizing.

June 9, 2008 Full Review Source: New York Magazine | Comment
New York Magazine
Top Critic IconTop Critic

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.

June 6, 2008 Full Review Source: New Republic | Comment
New Republic
Top Critic IconTop Critic

I know someone out there must like these things, because Sandler keeps getting the money to make what is turning out to be the same movie over and over again, but I must not be tuned into his comedy wavelength.

December 28, 2010 Full Review Source: ComingSoon.net | Comment
ComingSoon.net

The idea that the unholy trinity of Sandler, regular cohort Rob Schneider, and director Dennis Dugan could re-unite after ...Chuck and Larry begs the question: just how much did these guys sell their souls to get another film green lit?

July 6, 2010 Full Review Source: Matt's Movie Reviews | Comment
Matt's Movie Reviews

Warts and all, Zohan adds to a beautiful vision

August 26, 2009 Full Review Source: CinePassion | Comment
CinePassion

...the latest in a long line of underwhelming Adam Sandler comedies...

October 24, 2008 Full Review Source: Reel Film Reviews | Comment
Reel Film Reviews

You have to give Adam Sandler some credit: He is trying new things and working to expand his particular brand of juvenile comedy, albeit not always successfully.

October 18, 2008 Full Review Source: Q Network Film Desk | Comment
Q Network Film Desk

I cracked up during a lot of this movie.

October 18, 2008 Full Review Source: JoBlo's Movie Emporium | Comment
JoBlo's Movie Emporium

Adam Sandler has a ball (pun intended) with this film, and we have almost as much fun as he does . . . for the first half.

October 7, 2008 Full Review Source: Movie Metropolis | Comment
Movie Metropolis

This counter-terrorism satire is its own worst enemy. Especially whenever Sandler's whining geek turned combo swaggering assassin hair stylist's too-much-information bulging prosthetic crotch pops up.

October 5, 2008 Full Review Source: NewsBlaze | Comment
NewsBlaze

This counter-terrorism satire is its own worst enemy. Especially whenever Sandler's whining geek turned combo swaggering assassin hair stylist's too-much-information bulging prosthetic crotch pops up.

October 5, 2008 Full Review Source: NewsBlaze | Comment
NewsBlaze

Tasteless, a last minute appeal to tolerance notwithstanding.

October 4, 2008 Full Review Source: NewsBlaze | Comment
NewsBlaze

Slightly better than most.

October 1, 2008 Full Review Source: Hollywood.com | Comment
Hollywood.com

An army hero wearing Mariah Carey t-shirts? Yes. Yes. Yes.

September 8, 2008 Full Review Source: ReelzChannel.com | Comments (2)
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for You Don't Mess with the Zohan

Adam Sandler is one funny guy. It's the plot he struggles with in his films. Early on in his career, he was cast into such terrible plots. More recently, he has become subject to casting himself into mostly pointless films. YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN clearly depicts these inconsistencies by telling a funny, but

June 14, 2011
spielberg00
Alexander Diminiano

Super Reviewer

No. I'm not a fan of stupid comedy, especially when things are unrealistic.

August 9, 2011
Eric Alvarez

Super Reviewer

    1. Zohan: 'Mustafa!' This is not my name. Who tells you this is my name?
    – Submitted by Elaine B (5 months ago)
    1. Zohan: Smell it, smell it, smell it, now take it, thats for you.
    – Submitted by Elaine B (5 months ago)
    1. Zohan: Let's go.
    – Submitted by Elaine B (5 months ago)
    1. Gail: Usually he's harder than trigonometry.
    – Submitted by Nastassia J (6 months ago)
    1. Zohan: No no no.. 100 percent Khostralian.
    – Submitted by Sai? J (7 months ago)

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