In a summer season totally dominated by comic book-based and superhero movies, one thinks that, at least, Adam Sandler would offer some guilty-pleasure respite for movie-goers battered into submission by cool do-gooders in outrageous costumes performing impossible feats. Oddly enough, Sandler's latest screen creation is also prone to displaying the odd superhuman stunt - swimming like a dolphin or bringing old ladies to long-forgotten orgasmic heights. The guy would do anything for a laugh, and that alone deserves credit, even if his comedic stratagems are sometimes more distasteful than entertaining.

The other peculiar thing about You Don't Mess With the Zohan is its commendable ambition to strip a tricky subject down to pure comedy and thus provoke a constructive argument. Sandler did try this gambit once with I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry to catastrophically unfunny results and one must admit that Zohan does a better job at this. The absurdity of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to an outside party is showcased by pushing stereotypes to hysterical extremes, but still, the attempted mixture of Sandler's outrageous (and bankable) broad humour and more cerebral and challenging moments is disorientating at times.

Sandler is Zohan, an Israeli super-agent who loses all interest in counter-terrorism and surrenders to his secret life-long ambition - to be a hairdresser. He fakes his death and smuggles himself to the US in the company of two dogs, whose hair he does along the way. He is crestfallen after a couple of unsuccessful auditions, but is finally hired in the beauty shop of the dazzling Dalia (Emmanuelle Chriqui), who happens to be Palestinian. Unfortunately, Zohan's Palestinian uber-enemy, The Phantom (John Torturo), learns about his whereabouts and comes to take him on. There is also an ill-fitting subplot about a sleazy developer who wants to tear down a street of Arab and Israeli shops to build a monstrous and culturally-anonymous mall.

his, of course, leads to a feeble united front of long-time enemies, but hats are nonetheless off for the noble sentiment. If you are anxious that this is an Adam Sandler movie and there is no mention this far of his ubiquitous sidekick Rob Schneider, worry not - he is also here, as an Arab cab driver with a grudge of his own.

The plot and its branches only serve as a prop for various gags, which are outrageous, shameless and, yes, sometimes pretty funny. If you end up seeing this film by some sort of freak accident, or, say, as a punishment for losing a bet, you will probably laugh quite a lot despite yourself and your better judgement, but I say that this is a good thing. If you are a Sandler fan expecting another helping of what he does best, you are likely to be quite pleased, and then jolted into bewildered seriousness by something that Sandler might be trying to say. This sort of a stop-start jazzy rhythm is not a particularly good thing for a comedy and the movie would have fared better if it had given in fully to either its broad or its poignant half. It is, however, what is, so these sort of musings are purely academic - if you do see it, roll your eyes as much as you like about its frequent tastelessness, and laugh out loud when the gags deserve it - after all you don't often get to experience both sets of emotions in a single going.