The Hebrew Hammer Review

Satire is a hard genre to make work in film. The Hebrew Hammer is dedicated at the beginning to 'All of the Jewish brothers and sisters who had enough of the gentiles'. It's the work of first time writer/director Jonathan Kesselman. It's an absolutely stupid plot. Santa's vile racist son - Andy Dick - has staged a murderous coup against his liberal old man and plans to sabotage the Jewish celebration Hanukkah. Enter the Hebrew Hammer. He's Mordecai, Adam Goldberg, an Orthodox Jew who's reminiscent of the black American hero Shaft. Despite being out of favour with the Jewish Justice League, headed by Moshe Dayan look-alike Peter Coyote, he's enticed into helping them combat the new Santa by Esther, Judy Greer. I rarely get to the point of tears in my eyes from laughing at a film but I did with this. It's so seditious, so beautifully timed, so clever and so nicely performed for real by a whole range of actors including Mario van Peebles whose father who made the equally seditious Sweet Sweetback's Bad Ass Song. It's very much a film-referencing film. The ultimate weapon for the bad Santa is Frank Capra's It's A Wonderful Life, the antidote is Yentl. for a first film from a young filmmaker this shows remarkable talent, he's really smart this Jonathan Kesselman. I enjoyed his brain, his talent and his performers. This film is a hoot.