You Don't Mess with the Zohan
Columbia Pictures | Release Date: June 6, 2008 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
54
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 37 Critic Reviews
Positive:
14
Mixed:
17
Negative:
6
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
83
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
As hig concepts go, You Don't Mess With the Zohan" takes the cake. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
On screen it looks crazed, but the comic energy is huge, if indiscriminate, and Mr. Sandler's performance -- think Topol doing Charles Boyer -- can be as delicate as it is gleefully vulgar or grotesque. Read full review
80
TimeRichard Schickel
The result is a laff riot. Well, all right, a laff scuffle -- a picture that isn't quite as funny as it might be, but is as funny as it needs to be. Read full review
80
SalonStephanie Zacharek
The movie "Munich" should have been. At the very least, it's got to be the first picture to use smelly-feet jokes as a means of parsing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But more than that, it's a mainstream movie that dares to make jokes about the kinds of complex political realities that most of us don't dare bring up at dinner parties. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
Director Dennis Dugan knows his way around shin-whacking slapstick, and Sandler is mesmerizing. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Sandler works so hard at this, and so shamelessly, that he battered down my resistance. Like a Jerry Lewis out of control, he will do, and does, anything to get a laugh. No thinking adult should get within a mile of this film. I must not have been thinking. For my sins, I laughed. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
Nothing has brought me more cheap pleasure at a movie this year than the sight of shampoo and conditioner bottles falling off a rocking wall while comedian Alec Mapa, as a fellow stylist, tries to keep a straight face. He does a much better job than I did. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
Essentially, You Don't Mess With the Zohan isn't all that different in tone and sensibility from Sandler's previous films, but he's really trying in this one, and the effort pays off. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterSheri Linden
The comedy star's legions of fans will welcome the cheerfully crude proceedings as a return to silliness after several earnest, lower-key character turns. The melange of Middle East diplomacy, action absurdity, sexual healing and, when in doubt, hummus, wavers between muscular and middling. It's a surefire hit. Read full review
70
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
Brazenly self-confident in its refusal to pander to the imagined sensitivity of its audience. In this it differs notably from Albert Brooks's "Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World," which approached some of the same topics with misplaced thoughtfulness and tact. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
Sandler's first collaboration with co-writer and current Hollywood comedy godhead Judd Apatow, is a crazed, delightfully bizarre return to form for Sandler. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
Less like "The Waterboy" and more like "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry," only funny. Read full review
63
USA TodayClaudia Puig
The laughs are hit and miss and the movie is ho-hummus. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
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 full review
60
Los Angeles TimesMark Olsen
As another run-of-the-mill Sandler movie, it is better than most. At this point it seems a little foolish to want, let alone expect, "more" from the guy. If he can't be bothered to put more effort into his films, why should anybody else? Read full review
60
The New YorkerDavid Denby
An obscene, ridiculous, and occasionally very funny movie, and if it ever gets to the Middle East it will roil the falafel tables on both sides of the Arab-Israeli divide. Read full review
60
EmpireIan Freer
A strange, mostly enjoyable mix of big political questions and crude comedy, Zohan overcomes its skeletal plotting and uneven gag ratio through Sandler?s sheer commitment to nonsense. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
Forget "Monty Python," You Don't Mess With the Zohan is a circus that never really flies. Read full review
58
Seattle Post-IntelligencerSean Axmaker
Imagine Warren Beatty in "Shampoo" by way of a Jewish Rambo. Read full review
58
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
Intermittently fresh and amusing in a low-down yet schmaltzy way. Read full review
50
Village VoiceElla Taylor
If nothing else--and there isn't much else--You Don't Mess With the Zohan pronounces the Middle East fair game for absurdist comedy. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
An Israeli-on-Arab version of "Shampoo," You Don’t Mess With the Zohan is terrible in many ways, and shoddy in every way that has to do with filmmaking. But politically it's sort of interesting. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
A little like watching an episode of the TV show of which Adam Sandler is an alum: "Saturday Night Live." Zohan feels like an extended collection of skits tied together by a flimsy umbrella story. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
Spectacularly, unimpeachably, relentlessly preposterous. Read full review
50
Washington PostStephen Hunter
The movie is gross but not unfunny as it covers the Zohan's rise through hair culture, aided by his steamy heterosexuality, his lack of inhibition and his stereotypical career aggressiveness, until the old ladies are lined up all the way to the Bronx for a few minutes of bliss in the Zohan's chair. Read full review
50
Rolling StonePeter Travers
By the end of the film, the cliché of everybody getting along is reduced to both sides working together in the ultimate monument to capitalism: a mall. Some message. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderAndrea Gronvall
Though a bunch of the jokes are milked too thin, there are some absurdly goofy sight gags--like a hacky sack game enlisting a family pet--and a lineup of fun, silly cameos by guests from Chris Rock to Mariah Carey. Read full review
50
New York PostLou Lumenick
Directed with sledgehammer subtlety by Dennis Dugan ("I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry"). Read full review
40
VarietyBrian Lowry
The off-the-wall comedy of Robert Smigel and Judd Apatow leaves a mark on the script, but it would require a talent of Peter Sellers' magnitude to conquer this material, and he's not around. Read full review
40
NPRBob Mondello
What's more annoying than the crassness, really, is the directorial sloppiness that results in a virtually mirthless first half-hour and a slow build to chuckles thereafter. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsJoe Neumaier
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 full review
38
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
Sandler proves even a hardened Israeli secret service agent can be an imbecilic juvenile. Read full review
38
PremiereRyan Stewart
To find a comparison for You Don't Mess With the Zohan in Adam Sandler's filmography, you have to go back to 2000's "Little Nicky," a film with a fantasy slant that allowed for jokes of unencumbered silliness. Read full review
30
Film ThreatPete Vonder Haar
In truth, there's not much point to reviewing Adam Sandler comedies. They're almost always widely panned, and yet still manage to earn well over $100 million domestically. Don’' Mess with the Zohan looks to continue both trends, even if exaggerated Yiddish accents and sex with the elderly only take one so far. Read full review
25
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
At a time when the images of Arab-Americans are already largely negative, do we really need more violently temperamental, bomb throwing men in turbans and beards? Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
Serious intent may be lurking somewhere in there, but it's buried under layers of stupidity - not just stupid jokes, which is what you want from Sandler, but also stupid, shallow thinking. Read full review
25
Portland OregonianM. E. Russell
Might actually be the stupidest movie with good intentions that I've ever seen. Read full review
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