Ishtar (1987)

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Ishtar is one of the most notorious box office failures of all time. And after having seen it, it’s easy to see why. It sucks. And that’s baffling considering the immense talent of the creatives involved. Actors Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty were at the height of their careers, and writer/director Elaine May was responsible for writing on such films as Heaven Can Wait and Tootsie. Whatever the reasons, Ishtar misses the mark in many ways.

Hoffman and Beatty play terrible New York songwriters who take a desperate job offer to perform their music at a cantina in Morocco. Once there, they get embroiled in a complicated and overwhelming subplot involving the CIA, a secret map, and war with the fictional neighboring country of Ishtar. May’s script works overtime to set up and sustain the tedious B-storyline while giving very little quality attention to the A-storyline. Hoffman and Beatty’s characters aren’t just untalented, they’re annoying. I didn’t like them at all. Nor did I understand why they would engage in all the political subterfuge the script throws their way. I can’t say the actors do a bad job. These just aren’t the kind of characters with whom the audience wants to ride a camel across a desert.

There is nothing remotely funny about Ishtar’s sociopolitical problems. Nothing whatsoever. It’s mind-boggling to me that this is the premise for an alleged comedy. There are two spots in the movie where I think people might laugh. One is when co-star Isabelle Adjani flashes a boob at Hoffman to get his attention. The other is when vultures start landing around Hoffman and Beatty in the desert. But that is it. No more funny. Just a weird, curiously light-hearted story about politics in the Middle East.

With Charles Grodin and Carol Kane.