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
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