You Don't Mess with the Zohan

Zohan Dvir is an Israeli counterterrorism agent whose skills have made him a hero at home, but he is tired of fighting and secretly dreams of a different life: moving to New York and working as a hairstylist. During a confrontation with his long-standing adversary, the terrorist known as the Phantom, Zohan stages his own death so he can leave his old life behind. He arrives in the United States with little more than his scissors and a dated style guide, and talks his way into a job at a modest salon run by a Palestinian woman named Dalia. His unusual techniques quickly draw attention, but his past is not as far behind him as he hoped, and the Phantom eventually resurfaces.

Dennis Dugan directed the film, the ninth of the fourteen features he has directed in chronological order, following I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry and preceding Grown Ups. Adam Sandler stars as Zohan and co-wrote the screenplay with Judd Apatow and Robert Smugel, and also produced through Happy Madison. Emmanuelle Chriqui plays Dalia, with John Turturro as the Phantom, Nick Swardson, Lainie Kazan and Rob Schneider. It was a large production, costing around 90 million dollars and earning roughly 204 million worldwide.

Audience response has been middling. It holds 5.6/10 on IMDb from about 227,000 votes and 5.7/10 on TMDB from more than 4,000 votes, while critics gave it 4.8/10 across 188 reviews, slightly below both audience scores.