You Don't Mess with the Zohan/Rien que pour vos cheveux

(For your Hair Only)

Have I ever said that I used to get Adam Sandler and Ben Stiller confused years ago? A bit like De Niro and Pacino. Very weird and annoying.

Anyway, in You Don't Mess with the Zohan, Sandler plays Zohan, an Israeli spy who is fed up with killing Palestinian and fakes his own death and becomes a hair dresser in New York. The film is fairly amusing (I have just realised that I prefer Stiller to Sandler simply on the grounds of Dodgeball which I will have to comment on some day, honest) and there's John Turturro.

You Don't Mess with the Zohan tells you, matter of factly what you don't do. No spy undertone, nothing. Just a little sense that the Zohan might be a teeny bit dangerous, since you don't mess with him.

The French title follows rule 4 since it is a direct reference to one of the best known Bond films "For Your Eyes Only" or "Rien que pour vos yeux". So it was all too easy to change from yeux to cheveux, since the Zohan is going to be a hairdresser, and blatently imply that there's some spy related business in there. The Canadians have called the film "On ne rigole pas avec le Zohan" which is, as always, better than the French one. It's not actually a bad way of translating "mess with"

How would I have translated the title? Probably as "On ne se frotte pas au Zohan". But I do happen to have a brain.