Ishtar

There is so much talent involved in this movie, what happened? The cast and crew have a combined lifetime 61 Oscar nominations and 16 wins. How could this not be a better movie? It is well produced, the cinematography and costumes are fine and well done. The main flaws are the poorly written screenplay, the paper thin plot and the lack of spark from the main stars. It's not without some funny moments, but they are too scarce. The humor wears thin in less than an hour and it becomes a challenge to stay interested in the plot. The lovely Isabelle Adjani is wasted. Charles Grodin does score in a supporting role and outshines the rest of the cast.

I know it's not the best. Arsenic and Old Lace is the top comedy of all time. Citizen Kane the greatest film. Gone with the Wind the greatest epic.

Wizard of Oz the finest fantasy. And L.O.T.R. 1,2,3 trilogy is the ultimate film legend.

But for me, Ishtar is pure fun. I saw it when it came out. Bought the video. Watch it twice a year and have my daughter hooked on it too.

It's the Vinyl Cafe /Dave and Morley type of humour that gets me. I can't hold a tune with a forklift and I find the singing style and lyrics of Rogers and Clark inspirational.

I feel for these guys. The Warren Beatty line to Dustin Hoffman " You'd rather have nothing, than settle for less. " reminds me of my own ( self-deprecating ) personal credo, 'Lower your standards and achieve! "

These innocents are taken on a journey of discovery through Ishtar and back home to the struggle against 'lives of quiet desperation.'

"Ishtar was great," I think defiantly every time by some off chance someone I come in contact with who has actually seen it cites it was the worst movie ever. I suppose it's part of cinematic pop culture to hold that opinion as a safeguard against being called a fool.

The most charming quality of Ishtar is its consistently dry, tongue-and-cheek disposition. It offers brilliant insight to the types of people in the world that, despite the fact that to everyone else their talent is cheesy at best, continue to try and try. Rogers and Clarke are the "Every Men" for that entire segment of the population with their songwriting musical act.

Their third-rate, leisure-suit-wearing manager does his job by getting them a few gigs; the biggest gig of all is in Ishtar, a politically unstable Middle Eastern country. Which, of course, is unbeknownst to Rogers and Clarke, who are just reveling in their love of playing music. Their naivete (and sometimes outright stupidity) is a character unto itself, and plays brilliantly throughout the ridiculous adventure that they experience.

I've seen Hoffman and Beatty in interviews joking about how they knew the movie was so bad that, instead of quitting, they simply got into the spirit by over-acting at parts. But, whether they know it or not, they were very REAL people, and THAT was the best part of all.

I personally do not understand how anyone cannot like this movie. As a whole I cannot really recall many comedies that I would call great movies, and this is not a "great" movie. It is certainly one of my favorite comedies, though. Come on, you have Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman has bad singer/songwriters. What more can you ask for? And they seem so sincere in the process. Maybe I'm just too big of an Adjani fan.

For the most part, films that bomb badly usually deserve to, but Ishtar is a curious exception. For the life of me, I cannot understand the critical drubbing it took upon its initial release. Admittedly, it did go way over budget, and none of that opulence is visible on screen (the film has a murky and washed out look to it, and its sets and locales are not particularly impressive) but this is a comedy after all, and so lives or dies based on the quality of its jokes and situations, not its production design. And on that level Ishtar not only gets by but succeeds wonderfully.

Beatty and Hoffman play two dim bulbs who fancy themselves songwriters and pair up in an attempt to become the next Simon and Garfunkel. The tortured lyrics these guys come up with must be heard to be believed, and the scenes showing them working on their songs or presenting their act to audiences are some of the most screamingly funny ever committed to film. If for no other reason than to see these scenes, you should rent the movie.

Perhaps the film might have been funnier (and better accepted by critics) if it had focused exclusively on the show business dreams of its stars. However, early on the two get a booking to play an extended gig in Morocco (that alone should tell you how bad they are); they get waylaid in the fictional Middle Eastern country of Ishtar where they become inadvertently roped into a shady CIA dominated plot having something to do with rebellions, arm shipments and military coups. It's all rather hokey and confusing - but deliberately so, in the best screwball sense. And through it all Hoffman and Beatty truly shine: the bafflement on their faces and in their gestures as they are shepherded from place to place as dupes in a plot they don't understand is just priceless. Who would have thought that two such intelligent actors could play stupid so convincingly (either one of them, for example, would have made a preferable sidekick to Jim Carrey than Jeff Daniels was in Dumb and Dumber - his performance showed all the strain of a bright guy trying to force himself into a pose of ineptitude). Even more, who would have imagined that two such prima donnas could put their egos aside to work off each other so well and become a truly great comedy TEAM? No matter how crazy the plot may get, Hoffman and Beatty are never less than a delight as they hold down the center of the film.

Oh yeah, and if that weren't enough, there's also the treat of the wonderfully droll and deadpan Charles Grodin as the CIA operative in Ishtar. He's the villain of the piece, but his beautifully underplayed exasperation at the exploits of the two stars makes you like him almost as much as you do them.

So what are you waiting for? If you like a good, well done comedy with sharp performances and a kooky atmosphere, check out Ishtar today. Don't allow all those sourpuss, stone-faced critics to ruin your fun.