The Hebrew Hammer

Directed and Written by Jonathan Kesselman

Starring Adam Goldberg, Andy Dick, Judy Greer and Mario Van Peebles

Unrated

The year was 1971 and black power was the name of the game across America.  The political scene of the 60s was rife with black militancy and black heroes and anti-heroes.  And Hollywood was not far behind.  Doing its usual bit to help out, the film industry quickly exploited the situation with a series of films starring black supermen who, like the white supermen before them (remember Lucas McCain of the TV series “The Rifleman”?) hated violence but were still pretty darn good at it.  God-fearing men, they killed only when they had to, tried to keep the body count in the single digits and spared the women and children.  These heroes were the “riflemen” of the inner city.  Marshall Dillon in black leather.

This genre is not one that we hear much about any more.  It came at a time of tremendous wealth accumulation in America, and we were so full of ourselves that it seemed impossible to make movies in too bad of taste.  After all, “Hee Haw” was on TV. Of course, the disco era followed and then we found out that, yes, it was possible to make even worse movies.  But that’s another story.

The leading movie of the black super-hero genre was “Shaft,” starring Richard Roundtree.  The clothes were black, the music was black, the streets were black, the tenement halls and back alleys were black.  In comparison to Shaft, film noir looked like Wonder Bread.  The politics of the situation were simplified from the complex philosophies of people like Martin Luther King and boiled down to simply killing people.  Shaft was written by Ernest Tidyman, who was very white and who probably made more money from the book and film than the entire black cast put together.  The more things change, the more they stay the same.

But thirty years’ time gives us all a chance to let bygones be bygones and take an objective look at the follies of the past.  If you don’t believe that, just watch “A Mighty Wind” (speaking of Hee Haw) or perhaps “Spinal Tap.”  Enter  “The Hebrew Hammer”, a very funny film about a Jewish inner city detective who ain’t taking no shmuz from nobody.  Adam Goldberg (“How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days,” “Salton Sea,” and “A Beautiful Mind” and Eddie Menuek in TVs “Friends”) plays Mordechai Jefferson Carver, a Jew who grows up suffering the slings and arrows of prejudice in a big way.  He is shunned from all of the places and activities that make up the fun and self-assured lives of his goyim friends.  He is mocked for his clothes and his customs.  Like Woody Allen, his glasses are broken.  He gets no respect.   

A Christmas season movie, the film opens with a Christmas celebration at Mordechai’s school that is actually an on-going joke about Mordechai’s celebration of Hanukkah.  This becomes the basis for what passes as a plot in the movie: the attempted destruction of Hanukkah by a deranged Santa, played to the hilt by Andy Dick (“Zoolander”).  Dick’s character is actually named Santa Damian, the n’er do well son of the real Santa we all know and love.  But there is evil afoot and our beloved Santa dies mysteriously on the eve of the Christmas holidays.  Santa Damian seizes control of the sacred holiday and embarks on a holy war to eliminate Hanukah and all it stands for.

Also afoot is Santa’s not-so-trustworthy elf henchman, Jamal, played by Tony Cox.  The very fact that Santa has black elves is a hilarious stroke of genius and a credit to either inspired writing or casting, but that’s not the end of the story.  Tony Cox is actually playing two Santa’s elf parts this holiday season.  One in Hebrew Hammer and another in “Bad Santa,” where he is the partner-in-crime of the phony Santa/safecracker Willy Soke, played by Billy Bob Thornton. 

But getting back to the plot, Mordechai is taking care of business back on the mean streets, rescuing his fellows from the jaws of murderous meshungina, when he notices that a change is taking place in the neighborhood.  A change for the worse.  The normally happy and outgoing populace has fallen under a strange spell.  A spell of indescribable evil.  The people are being poisoned by Santa Damian’s plot to destroy Hanukah by distributing mind-numbing copies of a Christmas story too evil to name in these august pages.  A treacherous plot of goyim propaganda that only the Hebrew Hammer can stop.

Shuttling around in various disguises, the elf Jamil is acting as Santa Damian’s eyes and ears while the berserk Damian himself is cracking the whip over his now-enslaved elves and threatening to move the whole operation overseas to take advantage of cheaper Asian labor.

Peter Coyote (Eddie in “Northfork”) plays the redoubtable Chief Bloomenbergansteinthal who heads up the Jewish Justice League.  A cross between Moshe Dayan and Austin Powers, the chief is forced to entreat Carver to re-join the JJL after his rejection from the league due to his reckless, but successful, crime fighting ways.  Carver teams up with his old pal and inner city black militant Mohammed (Mario Van Peebles), the leader of the Kwanzaa Liberation Front, to fight for the survival of not only Hanukah, but the threatened Kwanzaa holiday as well (there can be no question about the holiday needing help).  Judy Greer rounds out the cast as Esther, the chief’s crime-fighting femme fatale daughter, who has eyes for the mysterious and macho Carver.

With some very funny gags and over-the-top acting by all concerned, “The Hebrew Hammer” provides a good dose of welcome comic relief for the holidays.  Although not as mighty in the satire department as “A Mighty Wind” or the Austin Powers movies, it is a good hearted show with plenty of physical comedy and some subtle nods to heroes of movies gone by.