You Don't Mess with the Zohan — Blu-ray Review
Adam Sandler returns to his roots (those being the silly, over-the-top movies like
Billy Madison and
Happy Gilmore) with
You Don't Mess With the Zohan. Zohan is the finest counterterrorist agent in the Israeli army, but he's tired of the life and longs to be a hairdresser at the Paul Mitchell salon in New York City. Getting out of the army isn't easy, so he fakes his death in a fight against his nemesis, The Pantom, and makes his escape to NY. It's all silky smooth until he's recognized by a Palestinian cab driver, and he must fight to keep his new life as a stylist.
I must say this is the worst Blu-ray movie I've seen, and I'm not talking about the movie, but the presentation. About 75% of the movie is completely washed out, with blacks appearing as greys, and skin looking like it had a liberal dusting with baby powder. I didn't watch the movie in theaters, but I can't imagine it looked like this. I found this so distracting I almost couldn't keep up with the complex plot of the movie (kidding, of course, but it was very distracting). Sure, the 1080p picture is sharp, and crystal clear, but none of that matters when the color is so off. There are English and French Dolby TrueHD 5.1 tracks, and Thai Dolby Digital 5.1, with subtitles available in English, French, Chinese, Thai, Korean and Indonesian/Bahasa.
The disc is packed with lots of bonus material, including two commentaries, one with Adam Sandler, Robert Smigel, Rob Schneider and Nick Swardson, and the other with Director Dennis Dugan. I found the first one fun, and worth listening to, but Dugan's was filled with tons of silence as he sat and watched the movie, or didn't have anything worthwhile to talk about. Most people can't carry a commentary track alone (there are exceptions, of course), and they should have paired Dugan with someone. "Translating the Zohan" allows you to watch the movie with all the foreign words and sayings translated into English via an on-screen display. There are 15 different featurettes on the movie which run 1 hour, 26 minutes, and 15 deleted scenes lasting over 12 minutes. Previews for other Sony titles, and the standard Sony BD-Live feature which allows you to download other trailers and take part in surveys, assuming you have a BD-Live capable player round out the bonus material on the disc.
I expected the movie to be absolutely silly, and somewhat stupid, and that's exactly what Sandler and company delivered. If you enjoyed
Billy Madison,
Happy Gilmore and
The Waterboy then you'll probably enjoy this disc, which includes both the unrated and theatrical cuts of the movie. I wouldn't recommend buying this movie due to the washed out picture, but there's an Amazon link below if you choose to ignore my warning.
Buy You Don't Mess With the Zohan on Amazon.com.
