YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN (2008)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological*

Once upon a time, there was a western movie-- or maybe more like 411,557 western movies-- in which an Eastern city slicker went out West and conned the noble White settlers into fighting the noble Red tribes, so that the con man could buy up their land once the two groups had killed one another.

Now what has that trope got to do with the almost-a-century-long Middle East conflict between Israelis and Arabs? Beats me, but the trope proved useful in resolving an insoluble conflict set up by the premise of ZOHAN. I think it safe to assume that, given the difficulty of using said conflict for comedy, this was probably the same "out" employed by writers Robert Smigel and Judd Apatow and by writer-star Adam Sandler when the three of them completed the first draft of ZOHAN's script in 2000. In any case, that was the basic trope behind the final script when the movie was released to theaters in 2008.

So in the Sandlerverse, the prolonged struggle between the denizens of Israel and Palestine (other Arabs are not mentioned) has one important difference from our world: each side has one, and apparently only one, superhuman agent. Israel has "Zohan" Dvir (Sandler), while Palestine has Fatoush, nicknamed "Phantom" (John Turturro). There's no explanation as to why these super-agents can perform great feats of strength or resist gunfire, and it's probably just as well the writers didn't try. But Zohan becomes tired of the never- ending battles, and he wants to emigrate to the U.S. so that he can live his dream of becoming a great hairdresser. In the pursuance of this goal, Zohan allows the world to think that Phantom has slain him, and then smuggles his way into America. (Since his illegal status is never mentioned, presumably his secret agent skills, or his espionage contacts, help him pass as a naturalized citizen.)

Zohan takes up lodging in a New York borough that just happens to be evenly divided between Israeli-Americans and Palestinian-Americans. Zohan makes a few friends, but because of his lack of experience he can't get a job doing "dos." However, the cute owner of a Palestinian hair salon (Emmanuelle Chiriqui) gives Zohan a menial cleaning job. Inevitably he gets to show his stuff, and he becomes incredibly popular.

This chain of events has two negative consequences. While the salon's business picks up and the owner is able to pay her extremely inflated rent, a block-busting landlord decides to use violent techniques to get rid of anyone not already turned out by his high rental rates. In addition, a Palestinian recognizes the hairdresser as the counter-terrorist Zohan, and he lets Phantom know about his enemy's location.

Like most Sandler movies, ZOHAN has some funny bits mixed in with various tedious indulgences. The basic idea of the agents of two warring powers coming to a rapprochement, even if their countries don't, is laudable. But because the script has no idea as to how to make things work out for a happy ending, they resort to the idea that the landlord, who's allied with White supremacies for some reason, serve the function of the evil city slickers fostering conflict for profit.

There's just barely enough superhero-style combat between Zohan and Phantom to justify calling this a combative comedy.