The Hebrew Hammer

A wickedly funny, Naked Gun-style parody that conflates old-style private-eye pics with Shaft and, yes, Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Writer/director John Kesselman serves up a stylin' live-action spoof that irreverently milks stereotypes and bravely pokes fun at that which is usually sacrosanct.

A hit-and-miss affair.

Would have worked brilliantly as a five-minute late-night comedy sketch, flogs its premise for nearly an hour and a half, generating too few laughs to justify the enterprise.

The result is explicit, if less than hilarious. The Hebrew Hammer lacks the edge of Adam Sandler's "Chanukah Song," although as anti-seasonal fare, it would make a suitably unbearable double bill with Terry Zwigoff's "Bad Santa."

Desperation is the project's principal quality, characterizing everything from the misfiring jokes to the surprisingly distinguished cast.

A crass, sophomoric and, more to the point, offensively unfunny parody that sets out to remake Shaft and his blaxploitation ilk as a Jewish action hero.