Get ready for a new comedy which is opening this week-end in the US theatres. “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan” is a peculiar movie, combining a set of Middle-East elements on the background of our under-the-nose New York, all seasoned with a lot of funny moments.

“Zohan’s” protagonist is also the protagonist behind the scenes. Adam Sandler signed in for the main character’s performance, but also for both screenwriting and producing the movie. The mind behind the direction of previous comedies, “Happy Gilmore” or “Big Daddy,” Dennis Dugan reunited with Sandler for their forth collaboration, and Dugan’s experience in comedy gigs pays off. Besides Sandler, the writing team includes “Saturday Night Live’s” Robert Smigel and the omnipresent Judd Apatow, the mastermind of comedy nowadays.

Sandler plays Zohan, an Israeli agent working in a hush-hush intelligence service, loved by everyone, but most important, by girls. Only that Zohan is not happy with his life and is determined to leave it behind and pursue his dream, that of becoming a hairstylist. Therefore, he leaves his mission of tracking down a Palestinian terrorist, the Phantom (John Turturro) and fakes his own death in an ambush to get away. And it’s not very hard to imagine where Zohan would leave to make his dream come true: America, obviously!

Zohan’s travel companions are two dogs in transit and besides sharing the same space with them, he also shares their names. He ‘baptizes’ himself with the combination of their names and he becomes Scrappy Coco. He’s got his “bible” - a fashion book dating back 1987, he has his creed – his belief that he could cut and style for Paul Mitchell, he has a fancy new name, suiting his new “religion”. Will he succeed?

Well, dreams come true with a lot of work; and it seems that faking his own death and traveling to the US it was not enough. The aspiring hairstylist finally finds a job at a hair salon in an ethnical melting-pot New York neighborhood. His boss is a Palestinian hottie (“Entourage's” Emmanuelle Chriqui) who, inevitably, becomes the love interest of Zohan-Coco.

Coco will have to face the stereotypes that will have him a homosexual, judging from the tight pants and his colorful shirts, hence the funny moments in the movie. He will also find that he has another talent, of providing a certain kind of services to the elder ladies. And most of all, his outstanding masculinity contoured in the tight outfits and the jokes about it will also engender some good laughs.

Zohan/Coco has his own foes, though. Salim (Rob Schneider), a Palestinian cab driver bearing one or two grudges against Zohan is tracking him down and brings some action into the comedy.

“Zohan” also features some surprising cameo roles. Heavy names like Chris Rock or Mariah Carey, plus several other talents like John McEnroe, George Takei or Henry Winkler drop by, although their characters aren’t that spectacular.

Without a doubt, there are amusing scenes in “Zohan,” like those moments when the title character shows his obsession with hummus. There are also the sex-related scenes, which cannot be absent in an Apatow movie (the comedy is indulgently PG-13 rated); however, you won’t get a muscular fever due to the belly laughs unless you are in an extremely good mood.

Movie Type:Comedy
Directed By: Dennis Dugan
Cast: Adam Sandler, Rob Schneider, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Nick Swardson, John Turturro
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for crude and sexual content throughout, language and nudity.
Released: June 6th, 2008 (wide)
U.S. Box Office:TBA