In real life, you don't mess with Adam Sandler, who stars as a hummus-loving, indestructible Israeli commando in the raucous and ribald, crude and surprisingly sweet "You Don't Mess With the Zohan."

Just ask director Dennis Dugan - on his fifth project with Sandler - a man who knows his place: "He's the artistic auteur. He thinks it up. I'm merely a member of the team."

Then there's Rob Schneider, who goes back more than a decade with Sandler to "Saturday Night Live," appearing now in many of his pal's films, including this one as a Palestinian cabdriver in New York City: "I don't see a lot of change, except he can buy and sell me two times over (and he knows it)."

And from co-screenwriter and co-star Robert Smigel, the "SNL" brain behind the "TV Funhouse" cartoons "The Ambiguously Gay Duo" and "X-Presidents": "On his second day at 'SNL,' he said, 'Smigie, I'm going to be huge.'‚"

And that's for sure. Sandler's 25 films have brought in more than a billion dollars at the box office.

"You Don't Mess With the Zohan," meanwhile, will please fans of Sandler's softer films ("The Wedding Singer" and "50 First Dates," for instance) yet it still delivers the vulgarity and sex his groupies come to expect.

Fact is, either you like Sandler, the 41-year-old Jewish kid from New Hampshire (his variations of "The Chanukah Song" are classic), or you despise him ("Little Nicky" and "Spanglish" are reasons to).

Sandler's mostly young male fans do adore him (he was the recipient this week of the Generation Award at the MTV Movie Awards). At an AMC preview in San Diego, a radio guy giving away T-shirts asked the audience to "name five projects of Adam Sandler." Nearly everyone in the house raised hands. The chosen one dashed off "Happy Gilmore," "Billy Madison," "The Wedding Singer," "The Waterboy" and "Anger Management." These folks knew their Adam Sandler.

So what is it about the guy that people relate to? "What comes through," said director Dugan, 61, who guided Sandler in "Happy Gilmore," "Big Daddy" and "I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry," "is that he's just a really nice person."

Sandler is criticized often for wallowing in "low-end comedy" - bodily function and coarse material, some of which is evident in "You Don't Mess With the Zohan." "Low-end comedy, I don't think there's any such thing," said Dugan. "Comedy is comedy. If it's funny, you laugh; if it's not funny, you don't."

In the movie, there are lots of laughs - well, maybe not so many for cat lovers (you get no more details here) - and a plot that could be adopted by the United Nations in bringing peace to the Middle East.

Sandler's superhero Israeli assassin (he catches bullets barehanded) is tired of all the violence. He's forced into action one more time in order to capture a Palestinian terrorist dubbed "The Phantom" and played by a really-into-it John Turturro.

Problem is, Zohan fantasizes about becoming a hairdresser, hiding Paul Mitchell style books under his bed (he lives with his parents). When he finally blurts his dreams in his thick Israeli accent to his traditional mom and dad ("I want to cut and style the hair"), his father (Shelley Berman, who puts hummus in his coffee) calls him a faigellah (a derogatory term for homosexual). His mother wants him to keep the assassin's job: "It's steady, good pay. They've been fighting 2,000 years. It couldn't last much longer."

His foray from Israel to New York (after faking his death) ends up in Brooklyn, where immigrant Israeli and Palestinians live uneasily in the same neighborhood. Soon, he gets hired at a Palestinian-owned salon and, of course, falls for the proprietor (Emmanuelle Chriqui from TV's "Entourage").

Zohan becomes the hottest stylist in the neighborhood, attracting a clientele of mostly elderly women whom he charms, not only delivering "silky smooth" new looks but satisfaction of another kind. In questionable taste? Base? Come on, it's an Adam Sandler flick.

At a press conference last weekend (Sandler avoids one-on-one interviews with newspaper reporters) at the tony Four Seasons Hotel, Sandler said of his film, "Basically, the message is, wouldn't life be so much easier if we all get along and hang out together?"

He was joined there by Dugan, Schneider, Smigel, Chriqui and Israeli actor Ido Mosseri. The star was in a T-shirt, cargo shorts and tennis shoes. He talked of his upbringing: "I grew up in a house that was funny and with friends who were funny. They all happened to be Jewish."

His family took pride in Israel's ability to defend itself from "people who didn't want that country there. As a Jewish kid, I remember they were trying to take out the Jews, and the Jews weren't going to let it happen. You were proud of that."

Was he concerned some might be offended at aspects of "You Don't Mess With the Zohan"? "My intention is never to offend someone, only to have a good time. When people come up to me and are offended by something I've done in the past, it bums me out."

Added Smigel, "The last thing we were doing was trying to make someone mad. Anytime you do comedy about sensitive subject matter, people feel passionate on both sides, you're going to tick someone off."

A reminiscence: There was a time back at "SNL," Schneider recalled, when everyone acknowledged the late Chris Farley as the funniest person on the show. "Tell Farley that," he said, "Chris would say, 'No, that's Adam Sandler.'‚"

"You Don't Mess With the Zohan"; running time 1 hour, 53 minutes; rated PG-13; 3 stars.

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