In his forthcoming comedy You Don't Mess with the Zohan, Adam Sandler plays an Israeli assassin and tough Jew who fakes his own death so that he can escape his violent life and pursue his dream of a becoming a hairdresser. As Dave Itzkoff puts it in The New York Times, "Trailers for the film promise plenty of broad farce, physical comedy and at least one lewd dance routine. What the ad campaign for Zohan does not emphasize is that the film also attempts to satirize the continuing tensions between Israel and its Arab neighbors, and provide humorous commentary on one of the least funny topics of modern times with a comedian who is not exactly known for incisive political wit." Itzkoff adds that "If you’re already wondering what gives the Zohan crew the right to tackle such sensitive subject matter, well, so are they." The movie, which has been in the thinking for eight years, was conceived by Sandler, who invented the character (which sounds a little like a comic, Israeli variant on Mickey Rourke's runaway IRA terrorist in the beleaguered 1987 film A Prayer for the Dying) and commissioned Judd Apatow and Robert Smigel to build a script around it.
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