You Don’t Mess With the Zohan

OK, you think, going in. This has potential. You don’t say so out loud, heaven knows, because surely your friends or spouse will shame you. Secretly, though, you’ve been wanting to see this one. It has a concept—groin-centered Israeli supercommando gives up pursuing Arab terrorists to pursue Manhattan hairstyling career instead—that only Adam Sandler might pull off (which is not to say redeem). It has John Turturro for a villain, and frequent Sandler collaborator Dennis Dugan for a director—who, you figure, will dispatch it with the requisite silly ethnic-humor accents, bottom-grade political farce and nostalgia for all those cultural tropes that were prominent at the time Sandler’s adolescence got stunted. It even has the imprimatur of Judd Apatow, who co-wrote with Sandler and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog originator Robert Smigel. All of this, yes, it has, and yet you come out feeling unsatisfied. You should have known: You Don’t Expect Much from the Zohan.