Ishtar

Ishtar is kind of brilliant. In fact, I don't think I've laughed this hard at a movie in a long time. Hoffman and Beatty are simply wonderful together - the first half hour is built entirely on their chemistry and it is probably the best part of the film. Plus, it has Charles Grodin and it is directed by the incredibly talented Elaine May, who sadly had her career ruined by some unfortunate word of mouth which led to this film flopping. Whatever. It's fucking great.

Fuck the haters, this movie is awesome. Anyone who doesn't have at least a few nice things to say about Ishtar hasn't seen it since 1987... if they even bothered to watch it at all. If nothing else, Beatty & Hoffman are brilliant together and the first half hour is one of the most genuine love stories ever committed to film. In a better world, this movie would have gotten the kind of accolades that were thrown at Fatal Attraction (which is trashy, uninspired & has 6 Oscar nominations).

Unlike other huge financial disasters of the 80s (Baron Munchausen / Heaven's Gate), time has not yet caught up to appreciate this goofy, at times charming, and often smartly written flick. There are some gaps in the funny, but it always came back for me.

One of the most unfairly maligned movies ever. Not that it's a great movie; it's mediocre, but bear in mind that its reputation was forged by the same critics who were simultaneously lauding "3 Men & a Baby," apparently with clear consciences. The opening few scenes are hilarious. If the rest were as good, this might be considered a comedy classic today.

The fact that this movie very obviously wasn't backed by the CIA like most Reagan-era movies about the Middle East just proves that the CIA had some really good script doctors.

No, but this is actually a really funny movie that deals with the geopolitics of the 1980s better than any other movie I've seen. Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty make amazing idiots, they have the most astounding gay love story ever captured on film, all the jokes are at the expense of the right people, and the climax of the movie is the main characters banding together with the heroic rebellion to shoot rocket launchers at CIA helicopters. THIS IS THE ANTI-RAMBO AND IT IS AMAZING.

With this it pretty much seems like Elaine May invented the Judd Apaptow bromance comedy twenty years too soon (but better of course). Fortunately it no longer appears to be regarded as the trainwreck that it once was, and actually the first 20 minutes at least are pretty great. If anything, the only real problem is that May's strengths obviously aren't best served by big budget action comedies (so essentially it's not unlike when David Gordon Green did Pineapple Express but, you know, better).

Absolutely awful. A blind camel gives the standout performance in this film, cruelly denying D. Hoffman his 7th Oscar win. What a truly appalling script - it was just cringeworthy from beginning to end. Muddled, boring, unfunny, paceless. People were either blackmailed into shooting this film, or high on drugs when they signed their contracts.

Embarrassing & tortuously unfunny mess. Not a bad idea for a story but the execution is consistently terrible. Worst editing I've seen in years & I've just watched Manos: The Hands Of Fate. Writing isn't much better either & the tone is going off in six different directions. The same absurdly bad jokes & songs are repeated in one endlessly infuriating sequence. Watching Isabelle Adjani try to work with the horrid material made me sad & what did they have on Hoffman that he had to be in this?

That's right, I watched "Ishtar"! You wanna make something out of it! Huh?!

Not nearly as bad as reputed, but still a mess.

Of course it’s no where near its initial reputation, but I don’t think it’s the masterpiece some say it is to prove their #tastemaking. I guess I just prefer my comedy to be grounded instead of ending up in a shootout with the CIA (with exceptions, of course) that’s why I was loving the first twenty minutes or so. All this time I didn’t know the Cool Whip thing from Family Guy was a reference to this movie.

It has plenty of jokes that don't land and has really not aged well in a couple of scenes in particular, but it's nowhere near as bad as its infamous reputation would have you believe. Hoffman and Beatty have tons of chemistry together, and it's always nice to see a movie where the communists are painted as the good guys while the CIA are the villains. The fact that it killed Elaine May's directing career is so unfortunate. She deserved a much better run in Hollywood

It's not quite as self-indulgent as you may have been led to believe, but it's not all that great a movie, either. The politics now feel very dated, and the cultural appropriation (like conversing with Berbers by saying "Kareem Abdul-Jabbar") doesn't do it any favors. The "two poor lounge singers" shtick do elicit a few chuckles with their bizarre songwriting abilities. But it's more like hearing a hilarious joke when you're drunk, but finding it not as funny when sober.

I remember this film's release and the critical savaging it got, so I have never seen it until now. It's ... pretty good. I think Beatty and Hoffman are really funny, and the bad songs written for them by Paul Williams are hilarious. I think it's actually an excellent film until it gets to Morocco ... and then it's still pretty good.

As a kid, my father would tell me that this is one of the all-time stinkers, the worst movie of all-time. Well, I decided to check it out, out of morbid curiosity. Every scene is dead on arrival. Only bright spot is at least it ended Elaine May's career (she wrote and directed this crap, and co-wrote all of the horrible songs).

I can't believe I let the reputation of this to kept me from watching it but this is a delightful comedy. Hoffman and Beatty are great, Grodin has an impeccable comedic timing and more importantly, politically, the film hits all the right notes. This might be a rare mainstream Hollywood film featuring Americans in the Middle East and wasn't script doctored by some spooks.

It's funny! Not perfect, but it's definitely funny. Light, happy, silly, and doesn't take itself or anything else too seriously.

I'll say this first, this is not the worst film ever made, it's very bad but not terrible at all. The early comedic beats sometimes work but at a certain point, about one third of the way through, it gets bogged-down in some of the most boring, overwrought, under-thought, tedious, and unnecessary plot developments from which it never recovers.

Not as bad as its reputation suggests, but May was the wrong choice for this large scale comedy that satirises America's political tendency to make a mess in the Middle East. She is far better suited to more intimate, character driven pieces, so the action scenes in Ishtar inevitably seem awkward, and there is a conspicuous lack of energy. Beatty and Hoffman are endearing as failed middle aged songwriters, and their songs are beautifully bad, but May's convoluted plot works against them.

Those guys were pawns. The '80s was a wonderful time for film comedies. So many memorable comedies came out at the time. Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, Bill and Ted, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off to name a few. And then there's Ishtar. Ishtar is not a good movie by any stretch of the imagination, but if it were released tomorrow, it be much more popular than it was in '87. Ishtar is the key to all of this. Because it's a funnier movie than we've had in theaters in a long while.

Kinda fun. Commercial failure, I hear, somewhat stale, but nothing extraordinary.

"The PLO was bombing over there and a cruise ship had been taken hostage ...and then Elaine May was causing problems..." http://illusionpodcast.blogspot.com/2014/08/episode-26-subject-of-this-episode-is.html

This movie rocks. Sure the plot is totally nonsensical, the characters have no motivation to do the things that they do, and the Adjani character is barely involved but the songs are hilarious and Charles Grodin is awesome. It definitely needs to be watched with a bunch of friends though, preferably drunk.

This movie has a rep as one of the worst buddy films of the 80's. I see no reason to dispute this

delightfully stupid

The best parts are all the little songs they keep coming up with. Also when that hot chick flashes her bewb

bad mvoie

It's not as bad as people say. It's not a good movie, but it's not completely without merit. It's funny to watch two good actors make such a bad choice.

Poor. One of Hollywood's biggest money losers ever, and with good reason.

Many years since I saw this, but my recollection is that it is pretty funny, which automatically makes it better than 98% of comedies made after 1980.

I saw Ishtar in the theatres and it isn't a terrible movie. I mean, it was a gigantic flop and millions may as well be poured into a sinkhole, but it still has its moments and there is Charles Grodin, Warren Beatty and a strange scene where Isabelle Adjani gets groped while being thought of as a boy.

I saw this one shortly after it first debuted and I did not think it was nearly as bad as most critics said. It is still a funny movie despite Warren Beatty's presence in it.