You Don't Mess With the Zohan (2008)

Getting through the first chunk of the Adam Sandler comedy/action spoof "You Don't Mess with the Zohan" is painful. I clicked it off when Sandler's character, an Israeli super soldier with unlimited strength, sodomized himself with a fish within four minutes of the start. Yet, bored the next night, I went back again.

The result is not too terrible.

The plot: Zohan -- the ultimate kick-ass Jew soldier -- dreams of coming to America to become a hair stylist. He fakes his death and steals away on a plane to the United States. He lands a job at a dinky hair salon, owned by an Arabic beauty, and in Warren Beatty style, bangs all the sex-starved female customers. Who all happen to be 60-plus. Those faux sex scenes are over-the-top, with a spray hose, shampoo and various hair creams talking the place of body parts and fluids. The stupid action comes in again when old foes -- including Rob Schneider -- figure out the lathering lothario's con.

"Zohan" is overly long, overly crude and wildly uneven, but the premise is funny and the political satire on Arabic/Jewish fighting is welcome. At one point a character insists that the religious foes have been fighting for 2,000 years, so it has to end sometime soon. The film doesn't end soon. I'm not sure if I watched the director's cut, but the near-two-hour length is a chore.

If the writing did't constantly veer toward middle school boy's bathroom humor, it'd be a good and sharp political comedy. But it isn't. Mariah Carey appears as herself, proofing again she has zero screen charisma. John Turturro, once an Oscar caliber actor, debases himself as a kinda sorta terrorist. C-