Well Deserved Praise

Excellent, a Must See

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

I've heard a lot about Ishtar and I was eager to see if it was as bad as I had heard. There's good news and bad news for the film. The good news is that it isn't as bad as critics and the IMDb reviews would have you believe. However, let there be no mistake, it is not good. I grade films like it's school(10-A+, 9-A, 8-B, 7-C, 6-D, 5-F) so by giving it a 7 it may appear that I am giving it a rather good review for claiming it to be a waste of film. It's a D+ film that I rounded up to a C(7). The stars (especially Beatty with a dick van dyke level impression of a Texas accent that comes and (mostly) goes much like the humour in this film) are terrible and the singing and songwriting are so bad they're bad. It's skips past funny to be headache-inducingly annoying. Isabelle Adjani is pointless, the macguffin of the movie comes to nothing and the passionate freedom fighter seems to die in her when she meets and trusts the capitalist American government for inexplicable reasons. The only saving grace is Charles grodin, who delivers the only legitimate laughs in the film. Fortunately he's in a couple of scenes so there's about 10-15 minutes of actual humour. The biggest problem however is the editing of the film which is nonsensical and leaves the audience confused and wondering what the hell was going. The writing's not much better either but one feels that with improved directing, it could've been a lot better. So to reiterate, it's not the worst thing I've ever seen but I certainly wouldn't recommend it to anyone who has the full use of their ears. I expect it's much better with the sound off

IMDb really needs to have a zero rating and this all-time stink-o-ramma-dome of a film is a perfect case in point ... why Beatty and Hoffman ever signed on is beyond most anyone's imagination and how their careers survived might be understandable but lord almighty they should have been made to clean every star on Hollywood blvd with a toothbrush as penance for this piece of celluloid smegma ...I'm not even going into the plot which is basically some latter-day tainted-mescaline freak-out of a Hope-Crosby road movie and there is little enough plot not to even bother ... one pointless scene moves into another barely held together by the cheapest of generic scotch-tape-premise ...at least Elaine May was punished for this hot-steaming-load of a film and never allowed to direct again ... she managed to produce some passable screenplays after Ishtar, 'Primary Colors' based on the bestselling novel (and nothing new in the political arena except they could point a finger at a current candidate) and 'Birdcage', but frankly they are just passable, not even approaching great in any way, and are a cookie-cutter selection from the Hollywood EZ-Bake script-idea oven (substitute a gay couple for an awful new in-laws meeting in 'Birdcage' and let Robin Williams do his VERY tiresome prancing gay 'send-up' which, also frankly, after 40 years of his doing this in every 'improv' or 'stand-up' routine we see of his, it has become more like trying to say 'it's OK to do black-face, minstrel send-ups as long as it's in the name of comedy' than it is any kind of comedic routine ... seriously, he needs to stop this ... it's offensive and as tiresome as the old comics from the "Bortsch-Belt" era sitting around in the 60s and 70s and doing their offensive ethnic or even racist routines and saying it's still more clever that those guys working 'blue' such as Lenny Bruce, etc ... sorry, going off on a tangent but Williams ALWAYS falls back on the 'flaming gay' routine, watch any of his appearances on 'whose line it is anyway', and he CANNOT do an improv scene WITHOUT using this hackneyed crap ... it is sad, offensive, and please, retire if this is all that can be passed off as inspiration) OK went off on a tangent there but golly gosh darn it, someone had to say it ...OK back to Elaine May .. even her best movie i think we'd all consider to be 'Tootsie' and yeah it was OK tho an uncredited writing credit so it's hard to tell what she did on it ... Bill Murray was the best part of the movie anyway ... had a big crush on Teri Garr at the time but by this time she was only playing the 'woman who is the patient every therapist/psychologist is waiting for and all they see while treating the patient is a big neon sign on the patient's forehead flashing 'BOAT' or 'LAKESIDE SUMMER HOME' and her routine was getting real old ... sorry Teri, but it's the truth ...'Heaven Can Wait' was OK ... cute and a good 'date movie' i suppose but anyone who believes that some out of shape middle-aged rich guy who never played a sport in his life can turn his physical body into an NFL top-caliber quarterback body just because the 'spirit' of an NFL top-caliber quarterback body just happens to be IN his body, is dosed on the same tainted-mescaline that inspired 'Ishtar' ... yes, it's a 'fantasy' movie ... but a bit of a basis in reality is necessary for us to swallow some of the fantasy ... 'Cinderella' is a fantasy movie too but it takes a fairy godmother to turn mice into horses to pull the carriage, not just put the spirit of a horse into a mouse and suddenly the mouse is as strong as a horse because they have the spirit of a horse ... you need to have a little cornerstone of reality to work with to build the fantasy house, OK? well, I've spent far too much time bitching about all this lol ... but once i get going it's a bit of a torrent during the rainy season on a mattress not conjured by a fairy godmother into a boat and the whole tainted-etc etc etc ..by the way, it's probably been pointed out but if you switch the letters around in the title of Ishtar you get the correct titleand btw, if you want to get a couple of stars trying to redo an old Hope-Crosby road movie in the last quarter of the 20th century, try the very underrated "Harry and Walter go to New York" with Elliott Gould, James Caan, Michael Cain, Diane Keaton, and lots of other faces you'll recognize ... the studio slashed this movie to hell before release and it was STILL a world away better than Ishtar ... hopefully, this will get a restoration tho it is doubtful ... they finally gave Peckinpah's 'Billy the Kid' it's due by restoring it but I'm afraid director Mark Rydell isn't gonna get the same and overdue re-issue Peckinpah got ... but rent the movie anyway ... i don't think it'd be inappropriate for kids over 11 or 12 these days ... tho they might not get some of the subtler jokes and it's a period piece which sometimes doesn't work well for younger ones ,... but hey, you and the wife can watch and enjoy :)

Last time I watched this film before tonight was in 1995. It was just as painful now as it was then. I did not laugh even once, not a chuckle or a slight grin. Please only watch this movie if you are forced to watch it or it is on your list of "must watch" because your hand is forced. The plot is horrible and weak. The soundtrack is typical 80's elevator music trash. Cinematography is as barren as the desert scene on the box cover. Hoffman is a great actor but it seems the writers never afforded him a strong enough script to even shine. The Direction must have been on heavy drugs because there was no effort to make this film interesting as it progressed.

This was a movie actually that I really wanted to like, but I gave it a chance and I disliked it intensely. It isn't completely laughter-free though, thank goodness, the business with the vultures and Charles Grodin's bungling CIA agent have their moments, but everything else is just sorry and redundant and that is including poor Isabelle Adjani.Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman are both fine actors, but as the tone-deaf songwriters, they can't do anything with their characters or dialogue and their chemistry together is oddball and not in a good way. For me, there wasn't a single likable character, the direction was sluggish, the film feels overlong and dull in the pace and the story is unfocused and never comes alive.I didn't think much of the production values and music either. The production values are okay but did little for me, while the music is forgettable. But the worst offender is the script which is just the epitome of crass, it isn't just that, it is also trite and racially-insensitive.Overall, a mess. 1/10 Bethany Cox