Added: take this exclusive Zohan poll.

The first trailer for You Don’t Mess With the Zohan makes it quite clear: some Israelis will take offense with this movie. What’s with that accent, they will ask. A mish-mash of Arabic and Kazakh, Sandler sounds like Borat’s gay cousin. Not like anything resembling Hebrew. And what’s a Zohan? It’s not even a real word.
But frankly, I don’t care. That “You’re like Rembrandt with a grenade” line made me laugh out loud. And seeing Cabo beaches double for Tel Aviv beaches, complete with the Hebrew ice cream product placement, is a riot.

Making a hero out of an Israeli Mossad agent in an action-comedy? It’s like 1976 all over again. Very weird. But the best part of the trailer is its choice of music. This is where one senses that the makers of “Zohan” have some sincerity. The song bookending the trailer is “Here I come” by Jerusalem Groove-Funk-Hip Hop Band Hadag Nachash (The Snake Fish). The song itself is quite humorous. It’s about a guy who packs up to leave Jerusalem, a boring and nerdy city, and sings “Here I Come” to Tel Aviv, the wild beachy party-town. But the big city - a modern day Sodom and Gomorrah - eats his soul up, so he packs up again and sings “here I come” back to Jerusalem, the holy city, a city of spirituality, a city with superb hummus. And so on and so forth as he can’t make up his mind whether to stay in one city or the other.
Here is this fantastic song (a huge hit in Israel) in its entirety:


Hadag Nachash, “Here I Come”. Directed by Yarden Gatt