Unlimitedia Sick Product of a Sick System

Noutions Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Glimmerubro It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Peter Welch Ishtar has one of the all-time best movie trailers... well, not really... but the trailer is pretty funny and zany. Once I saw the trailer, I had to see the movie. Now, I sincerely regret seeing the film. "Ishtar" is better in concept than in practice. Instead of weird and silly, it's miserable.Let's start with the positives: Beatty and Hoffman are great actors, and they are professionals. They could have phoned this one in, but they actually didn't. They made an honest effort with the material, and their good chemistry is the movie's biggest triumph. The scenes in which they songwrite together have real laughs, as do the scenes when they perform their music. Even at the movie's weakest moments, these two are pretty funny (scenes with the vultures and the arms dealers come to mind).The film's plot is totally incomprehensible. What are the characters doing? Why are they doing this? The viewer is constantly lost. The tone is also nonsense. This film is one part political drama, one part "Indiana Jones" and all parts confusing. What was all that crap about the "two messengers of god?" Instead of throwing a lot of plot in the movie, the writers needed to choose one identity and make it simple. Many groups of people are trying to kill our main characters for no apparent reason. The main characters do nothing interesting at all the whole movie. In the end, our main characters have survived, and we're told that the war is over. Why is the war over? What just happened? Who knows. I certainly don't.The film's structure is not traditional. Cheap, fun comedies (think "Tommy Boy") have easy to predict, easy to follow structures. If the goal of the movie is to inspire laughs, a simple structure is conducive to that goal. Basically, an inoffensive movie should have a simple set-up and a simple pay-off. In this movie, the first 30min are in the USA (the set-up), the next 30min are in Ishtar (more set-up), and the final 30min are in the desert (total confusion with no discernible pay-off). The lack of pay-off is immensely frustrating and it makes the viewer regret watching all of the set-up.When Beatty and Hoffman are not on screen together, this movie is absolutely miserable. Nobody else in the cast is funny. All the other characters just serve to talk about the nonsense plot, and it is teeth-grindingly boring. Skip this movie and just watch the trailer.

morpheusatloppers You could be forgiven for believing Elaine May's "Ishtar" was one of the five biggest financial disasters in Hollywood – the others being Michael Cimino's "Heaven's Gate", "Waterworld" with Kevin Costner, "Gigli" with Ben Affleck and "The Bonfire Of The Vanities" with Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis and others.But you would be WRONG. These five films are merely the most FAMOUS fiscal flops (alliteration!)There are DOZENS that equal and even surpass them. Ever heard of "Mars Needs Moms"? Precisely.Released (or more properly – escaped) just three years ago, THAT box-office bomb barely clawed back twenty of the one hundred and fifty big ones it cost to make.And back in the days of the Studio System, the number of films that are considered to be classics today – is equalled by those that just DISAPPEARED.The studios figured that releasing them would cost more in DAMAGE to their studio and stars than the bombs would net – so cut as much usable material (like battle scenes which could be used as stock footage) from them as possible and BURNED the rest.However now that the Studio System is long gone, EVERYTHING gets SOME sort of release.Thus "Ishtar", which cost $55M to make (a big budget in 1987) was eventually released, netting just $7M at the US box office.But this does not tell the whole story. The worldwide figures are unavailable – then you have to factor in video, TV and latterly, DVD rights. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to assume that overall, the movie is still a long way short of covering its production costs.These were worsened by the studio's insistence on giving the film high production values. The reason being that having heavyweights like Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty (who had championed Elaine May in the first place) on board, they were not about to scrimp it.Which is the film's first problem. Elaine had envisioned it as a "Road To…" movie (although it comes across more like those Sixties Bond spoofs – like "Danger Route" and "Our Man In Marrakesh") with a modest budget, shot locally – not an epic, part-made in Morocco.Furthermore, the studio insisted on paying both its lead actors a fortune – while both would have been happy with far less.To make things worse, the political situation in North Africa at the time was TENSE.Then to cap it all, just as the film was nearing completion, David Puttnam (now LORD Puttnam) was brought in as the studio's new head of production. He hated Beatty, Hoffman and production cost waste in equal measure – and publicly condemned the movie on the basis of all three.And all along the way, there had been a plethora of problems and fallouts too numerous to mention here – all of which conspired to CAPSIZE the film before it had a chance.So what is "Ishtar" actually LIKE? Well, most of those who decried it never even SAW it. It is actually not that bad.Beatty and Hoffman's chemistry is pretty good, Charles Grodin is as funny as ever – and the "blind" camel steals every scene he is in (the camel originally "signed" for the part got eaten instead).Plus Paul Williams' songs are realistically awful (Beatty and Hoffman play bad singer-songwriters) Dave Grusin's score is fine, May's script and direction is okay (although after "Ishtar", she never got to direct another movie) and altogether the film lopes along agreeably, never becoming boring (which is more than can be said for the other four films listed above).So if you find this piece in your DVD hire shop or it turns up on your TV schedules – give it a try. It may not be in my All Time Top Ten Movie list – or even my top hundred – but it is NOT as bad as many would have you believe.On its original release, it was well received at its three premieres, hit Number One at the box office during its opening week – and almost all of IMDb's 121 reviews (written by actual PEOPLE) are POSITIVE.And it is now available on Blu-Ray.I finally saw it a few days ago on DiggerMovie HD and LOLed many times (particularly during the scenes involving that camel). And as Elaine herself once said, "If all of the people who hate "Ishtar" had SEEN it – I would be a rich woman today."

SnoopyStyle Lyle Rogers (Warren Beatty) and Chuck Clarke (Dustin Hoffman) are two bumbling struggling song writers. Lyle is a hopeless idiot. Chuck is a ladies' man. They get booked to do a low-paying sad tour of north Africa. When they land in Ishtar, they get entangled in an international plot to overthrow the government. They meet CIA agent Jim Harrison (Charles Grodin) and a revolutionary Shirra Assel (Isabelle Adjani) who's looking for an ancient map.First, the horrible singing really sinks the movie before it gets going. The sad attempt at comedy does more harm than good. And setting the two actors against type is really confusing. It doesn't work. Warren Beatty is OK as the clueless idiot, but Dustin Hoffman is completely unconvincing.When they get to Ishtar, the whole confused revolution really shines a bad light on the duo's relationship. They're willing to believe the worst of each other. And they are angry at each other for a bunch of lies. They aren't good friends because friends don't do that.And how blind are they that they can't see Isabelle Adjani is a girl? The only funny thing is the blind camel. For the camel, I raise the rating from 2 to a 3. For the camel.

evan_harvey Hell is a video store full of copies of Ishtar, so they say. And yes, it's true! It's a terrible film. It's typical 80s: badly written, ludicrous plot, bad acting, you name it, Ishtar has it in spades. And yet so much fun.The plot is: two struggling songwriters take a trip to North Africa, one of them gets recruited by the CIA, the other by some local freedom fighters, hilarity ensues and then they release an album. Seriously, could a movie plot be any better than that? There's camels, bizarre songs and zany comedy.To be serious for a moment though, Ishtar represents a dying breed of movie. These days, 'bad' movies are either just dull and poorly written, or 'gross-out' comedies. No one makes truly bad movies any more like they used to. Ishtar is the perfect storm of wacky humour, outrageous plot and great acting by Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty.I'm giving it 7 out of 10 because I haven't seen it in years, and thus have nostalgic memories that I'm sure do not reflect how bad it actually is!