Introduction:

The movie begins with Zohan Dvir (Adam Sandler), an Israeli Special Forces soldier, hanging around at the Tel Aviv beach, attracting several women and capturing the attention of every beach-goer with his Hacky Sack prowess including a clumsy Fizzy Bubelech drinker. Then the film goes to his vacation in Eilat where he cooks fish in the nude, using copious amounts of hummus for himself, his friend and several women. He demonstrates his party favor, catching the fish between the cheeks of his buttocks. As he finishes cooking, an Israeli Defence Forces helicopter arrives, stealing him away from his presumed well-earned vacation.

During a subsequent briefing, Zohan expresses his displeasure about having his vacation cut short. After being heckled by his officer, he eventually agrees to do yet another mission of recapturing a key Palestinian terrorist, the “Phantom” (John Turturro), who had been freed by the Israeli government in exchange for two captured Mossad agents, plus an additional “to-be-named-later” spy. Later, as Zohan expresses his desire to leave Israel and become a hairdresser in New York City, his wishes are met with derision and accusations of homosexuality by his mother and his father, who had fought in Israel’s Six-Day War.

The disgruntled Zohan fakes his own death during the pursuit of the Phantom, who is tricked into believing he had killed Zohan. Zohan smuggles himself into a flight to New York City in a pet crate of two English sheepdogs named Scrappy and Coco. Changing his hairstyle into a 1987 Paul Mitchell’s Avalon style, shaving his beard into a goatee and taking “Scrappy Coco” as a new alias, he sets out to pursue his dreams in New York City.