This sounds more interesting than the trailers and ads have made it out to be.

For a short film that is a hilarious but heartfelt take on the Arab-Israeli conflict -- as well as a musical spoof of West Side Story -- I also highly recommend West Bank Story

http://www.westbankstory.com

It's a very funny, lovely short film!!

I haven't seen this movie, but I have seen Munich. Munich was a somewhat serious film, while this movie (again I have not seen it) seems like it might be a little silly. If you prefer silly films (and it seems that you do) you would obviously prefer the Adam Sandler movie to Munich. However, I don't entirely believe you when you say that Zohan is the superior film.

I must say, I thought Munich was a wonderful film for the first 2/3rds.

However, the sex scene in the end is on par in my mind with the end to Requiem for a Dream. It illuminates nothing as its shocking vulgarity provides a moral argument as intellectually astute as a 1980s after school special. Emotional manipulation of that sort is best reserved for soap operas.

Go see that, rent it. It won't bite.

"In "Zohan," Sandler is a Jew playing a Jew, but we also get another Jew (Schneider), an Italian-American (Turturro) and a Canadian of Jewish French Moroccan descent (Chriqui) playing Arabs."

Any white people playing black people? With some paint and a little sand on the floor...

I mean, it's cool if they really are reveling in the stereotypes for the purpose of exposing them and all, but I've never thought having people portray other races (esp. as terrorists) as something to be hopeful about.

But you've seen the movie and I haven't yet...

Absolutely. I mean God forbid that hack James Earl Jones should ever get to play King Lear.

It's called "acting" for a reason!

He was the penultimate Thulsa Doom though.

He is also one of 2 Asian SNL cast members, the other being Fred Armisson.

The Mossad is not part of the Israeli army, just like the CIA is not part of the American army. The army does have its own intelligence units, so the character probably works for one of those, which is why the Mossad is not mentioned.

The Hebrew name "Uri" is spelled with a "U" in English, not with two "o"'s. (Uri Geller ring a bell?) The way you spelled it looks silly.

Thank you for this article, Stephanie. It points to the message of the movie - while doing the necessary professional job of naming names, comparing the movie with the other movies and describing the scenes - in an encouraging way that the biggest political problems can be seen as human problems first of all. Acknowledged smelly feet can bring not only humbleness, but personal responsibility as well. After all - where are feet there should be a head.

When will Arab-American comedians make a movie exploiting the stereotypes of Israelis as cheap, rude, crude, belligerent, pushy, shark-like war-mongers?

Most "Mideast" movies overlook the bloody, terrorist founding of Israel. As someone said, Begin was viewed as Bin Laden by the British Army. Later he became Prime Minister-- and Haganah the IDF-- yet we talk as if Haniyeh and Hamas will never gain legitimacy. We think Begin noble now, hear the Exodus sound track in the background, while insisting all Arabs are "irredeemable" terrorists.

Why?

Instead of viewing Palestinians as folks trying to reclaim stolen land, we view them as crazies out to cause mayhem for sheer spiteful sport. We also look at Israeli actions as defensive... even when they start most, if not all, their wars. We ignore the fact that they fight only when they think they have the upper hand (to wit, cowardly).

Israelis will never fight Germans one-on-one, not when they can pound basically unarmed Palestinians with American-provided attack helicopters, fighter planes, tanks, cluster bombs, and so on. All from safe distances, too.

How brave!

The more you learn about modern Israel, the more you see its citizens repeating 1930s German actions: Going ballistic to make land "free" of "impure Others;" using highly-trained, heavily-armed soldiers against pistol-packing civilians; humiliating ghetto occupants for fun; and so on.

That is, you begin to see the similarity between Ashkenazis and Nazis. There are no death camps now, of course. The world wouldn't permit it. But it can and does allow death by other means (witness Darfur, Rawanda, etc.). Better to occupy people for 60s years and slowly starve them to death physically, emotionally, economically, and culturally.

As for numbers, Israelis vs. Palestinians probably mirrors Germans vs. Eastern European Jews.

Never say "Never again!" unless ALL people are encompassed/protected. Otherwise horrors repeat under changed definitions.

So again, when will Arabs comics make films about Israel uber alles?

Comparing "Munich" to "Zohan" is like comparing "Hogan's Heroes" to "Schindler's List." While Spielberg's film is undoubtedly flawed, it serves little purpose to say, "This fluffy comedy is better!" As a filmgoer, I am not about to say to myself, "'Zohan' is better than 'Munich'? I must go see this!" Nor am I about to eat an orange because somebody told me it was juicier than an apple.

Zacharek has mentioned "Munich" disparagingly before. I have replied before. Blaming Spielberg for some of the unusual twists in "Munich" conveniently forgets the screenwriters, Tony Kushner and Eric Roth (no lightweights, they), who carefully shaped those scenes with a specific, not arbitrary, purpose in mind.

Zacharek, are you reading this? Though you take it as a lapse in taste, the sex scene with the Munich killings flashback was designed to demonstrate how deeply the generational conflict's wounds go, right into home and hearth and sex, birth and death. You don't have to buy it, but as a critic you are obligated to attempt to understand it. Those themes were demonstrated repeatedly in "Munich" with its constant emphasis as well on food preparation, eating, dinner and kitchens (there are at least 3 major dinner scenes, did you notice?). At the end when Eric Bana asks Geoffrey Rush to dinner to "break bread" with him, Rush refuses, underscoring the way Jews themselves have become split due to the conflict.

The "sex and death" emphasis was also quite stark, and purposely as disturbing as possible, in the scene where the protagonists follow that female assassin to Amsterdam (I believe) to kill her, with the unsettling emphasis on her naked body. At least two major scenes involve danger hidden in a BED (a man killed in bed, and Bana ripping up his bed and house ala Gene Hackman in "The Conversation"), and one of the characters is a children's toymaker who ends up making bombs, and dies while tinkering with them -- toys, bombs, which is which?

You can go back and watch "Munich" and probably count at least a half-dozen other very pointed and deliberate ways that it tries to emphasize primal, family-life-based elements. Birth and sex and death. Generations of Jews and Palestinians, paying at the deepest levels for the sins and errors of people long since gone. That's what "Munich" is about.

As somebody who understands and appreciates Brian DePalma films, which are steeped in sex-and-death connections, I think you can try a little harder to "get" what Spielberg was striving for with "Munich." Again, I can't fault you if you don't like the way Spielberg shaped and handled the material, but the film deserves more than a blanket dismissal, especially when being used as a convenient way to elevate "Zohan."

Speaking of "Zohan," it doesn't sound bad. I don't like Adam Sandler much, but I am willing to allow that he might have evolved. I certainly found him enjoyable in "Punch Drunk Love," and the gay-marriage film he did last year was co-written by Alexander Payne, of whom I am a fan. Oh, and the "Reign O'er Me" movie showed Sandler playing a game I dig, "Shadow of the Colossus".....so that's a plus.

I don't mean to zizz you over "Zohan," Zacharek -- I'm just zeroing in on the way you treat "Munich" as if it's good for zip.