Two years later, Ernst Lubitsch directed “To Be or Not to Be,” arguably even more daring, while Billy Wilder threw a bucket of cold water on the Cold War with “One, Two, Three” in 1961. had entered WWII, Charlie Chaplin made “The Great Dictator,” about Hitler’s rise in Germany. It’s been a long time since Hollywood dared to spoof modern global anxieties. But in an era when congloms want four-quadrant summer movies that will offend no one, the message seems daring (especially considering the grief that Steven Spielberg got when his “Munich” offered a similar theme). SOME MAY AGREE with Daily Variety‘s Brian Lowry, who groans that this sentiment is “a rather childlike plea” for peace. But it’s the theme of the film, with Sandler’s Palestinian girlfriend, played by Emmanuelle Chriqui, repeating variations of her sentiment, “Both sides are crazy. It’s a joke line, delivered during a kung-fu fight with Sandler, who’s an Israeli commando.
“I’m just saying, it’s not so cut and dried!” “So we are the bad guys?” asks a Palestinian. There are enough sex jokes, romance and buffoonery that some audiences may be unaware that they’ve just seen a political film. “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan” is surprisingly subversive for a Hollywood teen comedy, with comic scenes of Sandler being tortured by Arabs, and jokes about scud missiles, militant Mideast children and grenades.
