Ishtar (1987)

Good Holy God.

What in the Good Lord's name did humanity do to deserve the tragic, holocaustic disaster that I've just beheld?

Oh yeah; global warming, World War II, Paris Hilton...forgot for a second.

Anyway, when I first set about my beloved pastime of collecting and watching very VERY bad movies, I knew that there were some dung among the pearls that were wholly and irrevocably reprehensible and completely without merit. That's just part and parcel with the whole bad movie-loving deal. And as I've said in the past, there's enjoyably bad movies which are so on the basis that they are so very bad.

But as time and history have both proven, there are always exceptions to the rule - in this case, where a movie is so bad, so worthless and so awful that nothing can redeem it, not even little silhouetted robots in the bottom right corner of the screen (thanks, Keith Allison, for that paraphrase).

I have found a perfect example of just such a film.

A quick Google will prove to you that Elaine May is not a hack. She is, in fact, a very funny and acerbic wit who has graced the screen with some funny and well-crafted entertainments as both writer and/or director (A New Leaf; The Heartbreak Kid - '72 version; Mikey and Nicky; Such Good Friends; Heaven Can Wait; The Birdcage; Primary Colors).

And neither are Warren Beatty nor Dustin Hoffman slouches. They are, it would be argued, the best actors of their generation. Come on, they've both won Oscars and various other awards for their works and contributions to the art and artifice of acting.

So with three such eclectic talents in check, why would it not be appropriate to think that their first collaborative effort together would be an all-out success? It dealt in the realms of comedy, had May writing as well as directing and seemed to be coming out when Beatty, Hoffman and May were all at the top of their game...so how could it go wrong?

Sit down, pie face; it's a long list....

Firstly, the basis of the film in question, Ishtar, is a government conspiracy tale wherein two completely incompetent singers and songwriters (Beatty, Hoffman) find themselves whisked away by the good ol' gummint of the U.S. of A to a distant Arabic land for a gig in the mythical land of Ishtar. What our Dynamic (Singing) Duo doesn't know is that they are being set up as pawns between the CIA, the Emir of Ishtar, and the rebels trying to overthrow the Emir's regime. Oh, and a beautiful freedom fighter (Isabelle Adjandi) serves as romantic fodder just to keep things interesting.

If this sounds like it's the blueprint for sparkling romantic comedy, it isn't. If it also sounds like a good satire on political intrigue, it isn't. If it too sounds like an ideal vehicle for Beatty and Hoffman, it REALLY isn't. And it, in fact, is probably the clumsiest, most money-losing and illest-conceived comedy ever featuring such well-repected actors.

What went wrong, then?

1) THE PREMISE - There is a market out there for political satire, as has been witnessed by such films as Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, Being There, The Candidate, Wild in the Streets, Bob Roberts and so many others. But the biggest difference between Ishtar and these aforementioned films is that they centered on their political subject matter and struck hard, fast and funny at their targets with venom and fire, making the pomposity of people in high office and the machinations of their red-tape-rituals seem as ridiculous and thick-headed as it really is.

Ishtar is all over the map, with odd bits of nonsense including blind camels and dancing vultures, actors screaming at each other and guns. Lots of guns. It even ends up with Beatty and Hoffman firing machine guns at a CIA helicopter. Is that funny? No.

2) THE WRITING - As I said, May is talented and has proven it before and since. With Ishtar, however, she seems to have been struck with Michael Cimino-itis, where she was so filled with the wonder and love of her work that it became all-consuming, at the sacrifice of such mundane topics as budget, timeline and, ultimately, screenplay.There is no trace of the biting wit May displayed to such good effect in her previous works; no one has any good one-liners or scenes (except for one person , but we'll get to that later) and the end result is a feeling of emptiness. No joy, no happiness, no delight in what has just been witnessed. Not the best end result for a comedy, do we agree on that? Good.

3) THE ACTING - Beatty is an accomplished comic actor, as was shown with films like Heaven Can Wait, Shampoo and The Fortune. Although Hoffman was (and is) an accomplished actor, this was technically his first comedy* (unless you count the biopic Lenny).

*(EDIT - Actually, an Anonymous reader was kind enough to point out to me that in fact Hoffman starred in Tootsie in 1982, a sparkling cross-dressing comedy for which he was nominated for an Oscar, even! Thank you so much for clarifying that in my clouded mind, Anon. And let this be a lesson to all you readers: even the webmaster can be taught a thing or two! I now return you to your regularly scheduled review -TGWD)

...And this was actually Beatty and Hoffman's first film as a duo, so you'd think there would be some kind of electricity - like another Martin and Lewis, Hope and Crosby or at least another Jay and Silent Bob. But during the course of the film they come off more like Sacco and Vanzetti.

They are both without a trace of humor, lightness, grace, whimsy or as much as a trace of talent. Oh sure, they're supposed to be playing talentless singers who perform terribly written songs stiffly and as tonelessly as any amateur night regular, but even bad singers can be made funny on film...heck, theoretically anything can be made funny. Just nothing herein.

And something else: Beatty and Hoffman are both so tired-looking, tired-sounding and lifelessly somber that it appears through their performances that they learned nothing from any of their past successes in either acting, comedy, pretending or what have you. It's sad.

Even if May were to have made the direction something spectacular (she should have, with legendary cinematographer Vittorio Storaro in tow, but he may have had bad karma left over from Heaven's Gate, so there you go...), there would still be the problem that nothing in this film looks even remotely nice. From New York City to Ishtar and back, everything just looks bland, drab, dark and uninteresting. And for a film that took months to edit and "perfect", you sure can't tell it from the end product - an end product that cost $55 million to make, and to date has earned back only $13 million or so.

As they say, every cloud has a silver lining. Even Ishtar. And that silver lining comes in the form of this man:

Charles Grodin.

As CIA operative Jim Harrison, Grodin supplies the only laughs, the only bright moments, the only irony and the only fun to be had in this whole film. Bless his heart, he's a good 'un.

Sad as it is, supporting actors Jack Weston and the aforementioned Adjandi (Beatty's at the time main squeeze) have little to do and supply practically nothing in terms of presence or humor. Just more casualties to the cause.

In the end, this has yet to be released in the States as a DVD, and, even with the release of films like Future War, Space Mutiny and Jekyll & Hyde...Together Again on DVD, maybe Hollywood has enough of a conscience to keep Ishtar, one of their biggest comedic failures ever, under wraps.

I wouldn't count on it, but one can always hope.

And if you've ever seen Ishtar, you'd feel likewise. Trust me.