You Don't Mess With the Zohan

"Disco, disco!"

...He'll blow you away.

An action comedy featuring Adam Sandler as an Israeli super soldier, and John Turturro as his arch-nemesis, The Phantom. (No, not that one.)

The plot goes something like this: Zohan Dvir is an Israeli super soldier, sort of a cross between Chuck Norris and Borat, who becomes tired of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. He fakes his own death, and moves to the United States, where he fulfills his life-long dream of becoming a (heterosexual) hairdresser.

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Tropes used in You Don't Mess With the Zohan include:

• Actor Allusion:
  • Rob Schneider being really close to a goat? Seen it.
  • And Zohan isn't the first Adam Sandler character to like things "silky [and] smooth."
  • Plus, John Turturro once again plays a character with a thing for people's feet.
• The Ace: Zohan breathes this trope, as does, to a lesser extent, Phantom.
• Adam Sandler Is About To Blow-Dry You: Well, just look at this page's image.
• All Jews Are Ashkenazi: The many gratuitous Yiddishisms among the film's Israeli Jews seem indicative of this trope.
• Ambiguously Brown: Walbridge awkwardly refers to Middle Easterners as being "brown....or khaki....or whatever color it is."
• Arab-Israeli Conflict: The backdrop of this movie.
• Badass Israeli: A constant Running Gag - an Israeli, long released from the army and running a falafel shop in America, is certainly going to keep grenades, rocket launchers and other heavy weaponry stashed somewhere, just in case. Also, a Mossad agent can clearly leap from to roof and do cool things with his ligaments. Just look at the poster.
• Between My Legs: Parodied in the promotional posters.
• Beyond the Impossible: It's pretty much directly stated that Zohan and Phantom can give uppercuts with their feet, control severed body parts, and walk on ceilings because once you become cool enough you can just do that kind of thing.
  • Zohan can even uppercut with one foot while Phantom takes his shoe size. and thus has his other leg raised in the air. That's right, Zohan can stand when both his feet are in the air.
• Big No: Walbridge, after his girlfriend's perfectly proportioned breasts deflate.
• Bilingual Bonus: Averted, subverted and played straight in the same film. Lots of the stuff said in the film is gibberish (no, there is no such thing as muchentuchen or fizzy bubbelach, and the occasional word uttered uttered in surprised with lots of khkhkh sounds is made up; as a matter of fact, ‘Zohan’ is not even a real Israeli name), Sandler uses few Hebrew words with Yiddish pronunciation, and Ido Mosseri as Oori calls the Walbridge employee a homo in legitimate Hebrew. But the most notable example of this trope (subversion or playing straight, YMMV) is when the Phantom calls Zohan a bastard in Hebrew, which is somewhat of a Crowning Moment of Funny for Israeli viewes.
  • Also, ‘puntakhat’, while it’s not an actual Hebrew word, slang or not, sounds like a corruption of ‘pot’ (vagina) and ‘takhat’ (arse).
• The Cameo: John McEnroe (in his second Sandler movie), Henry Winkler (in his third), and Mariah Carey (in a better movie than her usual). So too did George Takei, and Bruce Vilanch.
• Camp Straight: Several characters (including his own parents at one point) mistake him for being gay.
• Clown Car Base: In the climax, there is an instance of mooks getting out of a car...waaay more than the car should fit.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Walbridge
• Eats Babies: In a parody of the iconic Rocky Training Montage, Phantom wakes up early, cracks some eggs into a glass, and drinks the live chicks inside. He also punches a heavy bag, then a side of beef, then a live cow.
• Embarrassing First Name: Phantom is embarassed by his real name, Fatoush, until the end.
• Fauxreigner: Zohan and Phantom take out a mob of Southern rednecks disguised as stereotypical Arab terrorists and Hasidic Jews (so that the Israelis and Palestinians would each think the other ethnic group was vandalizing their shops).
• Gag Penis: Zohan has a notable bulge in his pants, which he uses at one point to scratch a record.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: An in-story example. Israelis and Palestinians love three things: Mariah Carey, hacky sack, and disco.
• Get a Load of That Square: The hairstyling book from the '80s is just the tip of the iceberg.
• Global Ignorance: Gail gets Australia confused with South Africa.
• Hey, It's That Guy!: World-famous sports announcer Michael Buffer portrays the Big Bad.
• Hummus For Everything: It can even put out fires!
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Zohan just wants to make everyone silky smooth, and Phantom just wants to sell shoes.
• Israelis With Infrared Missiles: Zohan is better than infrared missiles.
• It's Not You, It's Me: This is what Zohan tries to tell Raffaela, and what she in turn tries to tell him, in response to the unfortunate ethnically charged cock-blocking. However, it turns out that the xenophobia goes deeper than expected: Raffaela comes from a terrorist family, and The Phantom is her brother.
• Likes Older Women: Zohan.
• Living Legend: The Zohan is beloved by the Israeli people and both hated and feared by the Palestinian people. Fatoush Hakbarah is his Palestinian reflection.
• Magical Realism
• Misfit Mobilization Moment: crossed with Lock and Load Montage
• Our Founder: The Rocky montage ends with the Phantom running up a slope instead of steps, reaching a statue of himself.
• Politically Incorrect Villains: The white supremacist/survivalist types recruited by Walbridge to terrorize the residents on the block where he wants to build his shopping mall - and, when that doesn't work, to vandalize everyone's shops and make it appear as if the two immigrant groups were targeting each other.
• Raw Eggs Make You Stronger: The Phantom hatches eggs and eats live full-formed chicks from them.
• Real Men Wear Pink: Zohan and the Phantom are the coolest men alive. They both love Mariah Carey and dream of being a hairdresser and shoe salesman respectively.
• Refuge in Audacity
• Rule of Funny
• Running Gag: Using hummus for everything, up to and including toothpaste and putting out fires.
• Serious Business: Even the lowly job of sweeping the hair clippings is this to Zohan.
• Small Reference Pools: Surprisingly, the supposedly sophisticated Walbridge doesn't know what hummus is - this despite the fact that hummus is available in most large American cities, and not just in Semitic communities.
• Spell My Name with a "The"
• Screams Like a Little Girl: The Phantom is surprisingly easy to startle.
• Space Whale Aesop: The conclusion for the movie paints the picture that the ultimate solution to the Arab-Israeli Conflict is for everybody in the region to move to America.
• This Is What the Building Will Look Like: The model of Walbridge's planned shopping mall.
• Title Drop: The title is said by Zohan's friend after Zohan beats several strong men and a bull in tug of war singlehanded. In fact, it's actually the very first line in the movie.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Zohan loves hummus. He puts it on everything he eats and even brushes his teeth with it. Also, Fizzy Bubbelech, of which he can down an entire bottle in less than a second.
• Very Loosely Based on a True Story: No, really.
• Wake Up, Go to School, Save the World: Okay, so it's "Lather. Rinse. Save the world." Same difference.
• We ARE Struggling Together!: Zohan's appeal to his neighbors when it looks as if an inter-ethnic war is about to break out.