You Don't Mess With the Zohan, 2008 - Movie Review

Director: Dennis Dugan

Starring: Adam Sandler, John Turturro, Emmanuelle Chriqui

Score: 7 / 10

This review by Dick Steel.

Comedies go up against each other at the local box office, with Adam Sandler squaring off against Steve Carell, and incidentally, both lead characters in their movies are of the spy / special forces kind, with Sandler's Zohan Dvir being the top Israeli counter-terrorist operative, and Carell's Maxwell Smart thinking he's the best, working for the CONTROL organization to bring down KAOS. Just which agent will outdo the other remains to be seen, but I thought Zohan had opportunity before throwing it away when it goes back to the usual sacharrine sweet ending with a nicely inserted moral message of peace and harmony.

Directed by Dennis Dugan who helmed comedies like The Benchwarmers and the recent Adam Sandler movie I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, You Don't Mess With The Zohan has its title come across as a warning to those who cross the Zohan's path. In every sense of the word, Zohan is Israel's #1 superhero for his superhuman strength, speed, agility, and just about being as indestructible as Superman, without that heat ray bursting through his eyes. Having killed many in his lifetime, he seeks a life away from the glitz, glamour and hero worship in his homeland, and harbours a secret desire to style hair, with the ambition to make the world Silky Smooth!

Going up against his arch-enemy The Phantom (John Turturro), he fakes his own death, and finds his way to New York, where under a pseudonym Scrappy Coco, he exhibits the much stereotyped mannerisms that all male hairdressers have broken wrists. Yes people, Zohan would be quite offensive to some, as the jokes come hard and fast when it comes to race (there are tons of Arab jokes here, mostly putting them in bad light), politics (even wives of prominent politicians are unspared) and plenty of sexual inneundoes, perhaps no thanks to the writing input from Judd Apatow, who gave us flicks like Superbad (super-sized dong anyone?), 40-Year Old Virgin, and the likes. If you don't mind politically incorrect flicks, then Zohan would be right up your alley, where no orifice is sacred.

So has Sandler sunk to a new low? Perhaps not, but I think he's in need of a boost to his career, which seemed to have stagnated with fairly plain comedic flicks such as Longest Yard and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, and even Click, perhaps being loaded with a tad bit of drama and feel good messages. And it doesn't really help when personally I still think that Spanglish was his best non-comedic work which stuck to me, for some reason. He tries to reinvent himself, but I feel he's still quite a distance away from peers like Mike Myers who comes up with crazy characters every now and then (am looking forward to the troubled and controversial Love Guru), and even Sacha Baron Cohen (whom I'm looking forward to his Bruno).

Here, Sandler's Zohan relies on both his amazing prowess to bring down the bad guys, as well as his over-sized crotch to seduce plus sized and elderly women who come visit him for a haircut, and extra special services he dishes out. Granted they bring on the laughs, and there were some really genuine funny moments to compensate for some expected laughs on the horizon. But aside from that, the story's pretty much lost its direction after the mid-way point, where it couldn't decide whether to be an all out romance flick, with Zohan getting stiff for his salon owner Dalia (Emmanuelle Chriqui), or to focus on the aged old dispute between the two cultures where fellow immigrants and enemies find out his true identity, and revive their aged old feud in a foreign land. There were some bewildering scenes that seemed to have, like the mentioned threads, been abandoned halfway, for example, with the rallying of troops to the game of Hacky Sack.

Nonetheless, what's an Adam Sandler movie without the list of cameo appearances to spice things up? Here you get Rob Schneider who makes regular cameo or supporting character appearances in a Sandler movie, together with Chris Rock, Mariah Carey who hams up her Diva status, Kevin James his co-star from Chuck and Larry, and even George Takei, whom I thought was a strange cameo given that he just came out of the closet recently, and gets himself involved in a somewhat homophobic scene.

You Don't Mess With The Zohan doesn't always hit the mark, but it surely has enough moments in its close to 2 hour runtime to make it worthwhile to sit through and enjoy. Only if you prefer your comedy to be politically incorrect, of course.

P.S. Am just wondering how many will emulate that crazy accented "Nononono".

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Mad Detective, 2007 - Review

Director: Johnny To

Starring: Ching Wan Lau

Running Time: 89 minutes

Score: 9/10

This from Dick Steel

Mad Detective had been touted as the long awaited re-team of Johnny To and Wai Ka Fai, who together have made Running on Karma back in 2003. The return of Lau Ching Wan to a To-Wai movie (since My Left Eye Sees Ghosts) is also more than welcome, and Mad Detective to me lived up to its hype, despite having certain obvious recycled elements from To's earlier films.

But this doesn't mean that the movie felt familiar. Sure, the iconic elements of a To movie were all there, including the saga of the missing police handgun, and the oh-so-stylish Mexican stand-offs (that we've seen in recent To movies in Exiled and Triangle) and the inevitable resolution, though how this one panned out, deserves the loudest of applause for its edge-of-your-seat-who-comes-out-unscathed revelation. And the end result is both satisfying, for a movie that had engaged through all its minutes, and yet frustrating, though the good thing was that there isn't any cop-out edits just to satisfy censors or sooth faux morals.

Mad Detective tells the story of Bun (Lau), who is termed as the title says because of his extremely unorthodox methods to solve crime - he re-enacts them at the very venues they are committed, getting into the minds of the criminals, and through this manner, able to identify who the perpetrator is. Needless to say his crime solving rate is high and he beocomes a legend, until a crazed moment saw him cut off his right ear to present to a departing boss, and with that, an early discharge letter from the Force.

The story fast forwards 5 years later, with detective Ho (Andy On) investigating a case of a missing cop and his gun, which was found to be used in a series of armed robberies. While suspicion is strong on the partner Chi-wai (Lam Ka Tung), there is absolutely no shred of evidence linking him to the crime. In his desperation, Ho turns to Bun, very much against protocol, and enlists his help in solving the case.

That's basically it, as we see in more detail what Bun's abilities are in depth. He's part profiler, part sage, and to many, all insanity with his constant talking to himself, and banged up attire sans socks. What I thought made it a close to perfect thriller, was that it constantly kept you guessing whether Bun is indeed what the title is, if it had taken a leaf out of Oxide Pang's creation of the C+ Detective with some supernatural moments, of if it was solely a disorder of the mind. If it shows you compelling evidence that you deem is a smoking gun, in no time are you presented with doubts that will cloud your judgement. You're given a glimpse of how the method in the madness works, and more often than not, find yourself second-guessing all the time, just like how Ho does.

And to that effect, I would warrant a guess that some in the audience will be left perplexed and confused, but my advice is not to give up on it. There are many wonderful moments especially when Bun's ability is fleshed out for the audience to see, and as such provided plenty of cameo appearances like Lam Suet and Cheung Siu Fai, playing personalities that were personifications of an inner man's thoughts, desires and fears. A pity though that not all personalities shown were provided screen time to do something more. A cautionary tale too about not judging a book by its cover, as even uncanny abilities to read a person might not be able to sniff out something that's regressive and well concealed, the true intentions of anyone.

Lau Ching Wan took a long hiatus before returning to the big screens here (since The Shopaholics, and the lovely My Name is Fame only made it straight to disc), and this comeback is nothing short of majestic in having him in his element, doing almost a one- man show if you will. You laugh at his antics, cry at his predicament in being so dogged in his persistence, admire his unorthodox methods and philosophy approaching investigations (to use emotions), yet cry along in pity when you suspect he's slowly degenerating into madness. Lau has charisma enough to make you empathize with his Bun, into a character you root for, despite his obvious difference. Andy On holds his own as the greenhorn investigator well enough in scenes opposite Lau, while Lam Ka Tung is just plain menacing as the accused, expressing his frustration in being the prime suspect, being both the cat and the mouse in the hunt for the truth.

What I admire about the movie, is how a simple idea can be branched into something complex, but yet within grasp, so hats off to the writing-directing team of To and Wai Ka Fai. In essence, this is a story that is told with its cards close to its chest, providing great balance in letting the multiple cats out of the bag at the right time. Simply superb!

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