Wonderfully offbeat film!

From my favorite movies..

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

I've seen worse movies, but it is easy enough to see why Ishar is worthy of being called the worst Hollywood movie of all time.A story of two hapless New Yorkers trying to make it as a Simon and Garfunkel-type pop duo, but after they get booked to a gig in Morocco, they become involved in the Federal Bureau and a massive Civil War.The opening scenes are about emphasizing how terrible Hoffman and Beatty are as musicians. The lyrics are funny but when they perform, they are so deliberately void of talent that the gimmick is less funny than it is depressing. Even bad music needs to palatable and even entertaining (like Steve Martin's early SNL work), otherwise the audience will disown the characters. The biggest problem with Ishtar is that Hoffman and Beatty take themselves too seriously for a movie that is doing everything in the world to ridicule them. It makes you yearn for the delicious double takes of Bob Hope in the "Road to" movies that inspired this fiasco.Not even veteran DP Vilmos Szigmund (Close Encounters, Heaven's Gate) can bring anything to the movie. There are a few nice wide shots in the Sahara, but the overall picture is visually bland, with static camera work, under lit interiors, and no sense of depth or scope. As far as humour goes, most of it fall flat, but there are a couple of good laughs to be had. Hoffman pretends to be a weapons dealer at one point and his fake Arabic is a scream (if you don't mind the political offence). The story line is shapeless to the point of feeling improvised, and the ending feels rushed, although ironically that becomes a positive when considering how hard Ishtar is to sit through.

Ishtar has one of the all-time best movie trailers... well, not really... but the trailer is pretty funny and zany. Once I saw the trailer, I had to see the movie. Now, I sincerely regret seeing the film. "Ishtar" is better in concept than in practice. Instead of weird and silly, it's miserable.Let's start with the positives: Beatty and Hoffman are great actors, and they are professionals. They could have phoned this one in, but they actually didn't. They made an honest effort with the material, and their good chemistry is the movie's biggest triumph. The scenes in which they songwrite together have real laughs, as do the scenes when they perform their music. Even at the movie's weakest moments, these two are pretty funny (scenes with the vultures and the arms dealers come to mind).The film's plot is totally incomprehensible. What are the characters doing? Why are they doing this? The viewer is constantly lost. The tone is also nonsense. This film is one part political drama, one part "Indiana Jones" and all parts confusing. What was all that crap about the "two messengers of god?" Instead of throwing a lot of plot in the movie, the writers needed to choose one identity and make it simple. Many groups of people are trying to kill our main characters for no apparent reason. The main characters do nothing interesting at all the whole movie. In the end, our main characters have survived, and we're told that the war is over. Why is the war over? What just happened? Who knows. I certainly don't.The film's structure is not traditional. Cheap, fun comedies (think "Tommy Boy") have easy to predict, easy to follow structures. If the goal of the movie is to inspire laughs, a simple structure is conducive to that goal. Basically, an inoffensive movie should have a simple set-up and a simple pay-off. In this movie, the first 30min are in the USA (the set-up), the next 30min are in Ishtar (more set-up), and the final 30min are in the desert (total confusion with no discernible pay-off). The lack of pay-off is immensely frustrating and it makes the viewer regret watching all of the set-up.When Beatty and Hoffman are not on screen together, this movie is absolutely miserable. Nobody else in the cast is funny. All the other characters just serve to talk about the nonsense plot, and it is teeth-grindingly boring. Skip this movie and just watch the trailer.

I urge you to see it with an open mind. There's something for everyone here, though the two male leads were overcast. Two terrible lounge singers get booked to play a gig in a Moroccan hotel but somehow become pawns in an international power play between the CIA, the Emir of Ishtar, and the rebels trying to overthrow his regime. I thought this film was fantastic in some ways and terrible in others. Great performances help to enhance this story of friendship. No matter what anyone says, this is utterly fantastic, an eye-popping cinematic treat. I will never understand the hate for this movie. I found it to be sensational!

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.