Ishtar (1987)
Directed by: Elaine May.
Written by: Elaine May.
Starring: Warren Beatty (Lyle
Rogers), Dustin Hoffman (Chuck Clarke), Isabelle Adjani (Shirra Assel), Charles
Grodin (Jim Harrison), Jack Weston (Marty Freed), Tess Harper (Willa), Carol
Kane (Carol), Aharon Ipalé (Emir Yousef), Fijad Hageb (Abdul).
There are some movies that an
so synonymous with failure that they end up getting a lot of people in their
corner – decades after their release, by a bunch of people who want to tell you
that that movie that everyone agrees was horrible, is really a misunderstood
masterpiece. One of those films is Elaine May’s Ishtar, from 1987 – which was a
huge critical and commercial failure, and ended May’s directing career – she
has never directed another feature since the film’s failure. It was called the
Heaven’s Gate of comedy – but like Michael Cimino’s effort, there has been a
recent movement to claim that Ishtar really isn’t that bad – it’s really a
comic masterwork. I will agree on one thing – it is not as bad as Heaven’s Gate
– which, despite what its supporters claim, really is the four hour, horrible, confusing,
messy bore that critics and audiences rejected back in 1981. But that doesn’t
mean Ishtar is actually a good movie. It isn’t. I don’t think it’s one of the
worst films in history – it’s just your regular, run-of-the-mill bad comedy –
that really isn’t that funny, and ends up being almost completely forgettable.
The opening scenes in Ishtar
are the best. Two talentless songwriters, Rogers and Clarke (Warren Beatty and
Dustin Hoffman) team up in New York and try to get a record deal. But they really
are terrible and delusional. The scenes of Beatty and Hoffman performing their
awful songs really are quite amusing, and the two talented actors wonderful as
the two completely committed, completely clueless songwriters. The songs aren’t
memorably awful – like say they are in this is Spinal Tap – but they are quite
amusing. The pair do end up with an agent – who isn’t stupid of enough to think
they have talent, but does think he can get them a low playing gig, playing for
tourists in Morocco.
Once the film gets to Morocco,
it really does go off the rails. They’ve barely arrived at the airport, when
Clarke is approached by Shirra Assel (Isabelle Adjani, playing an Arab woman,
because, sure why not? Nearly 30 years later Christopher Abbott can apparently do
it, so fuck it, I guess) who really wants his passport, and for some reason,
flashes her breast at him (yeah, I know, she does it to prove she’s a woman,
but surely there was an easier way to prove that). That ends up drawing the
attention of the CIA – led by Jim Harrison (Charles Grodin), who enlist Clarke
to help that track down the group Shirra is a part of. Remember, this is 1987,
so Arabs weren’t necessarily evil in all Hollywood movies yet, and while the
movie doesn’t shy away from what would become known as radical Islam, it pretty
much paints everyone as clueless and violent as anyone. 20 years before the
Coen brothers Burn After Reading, Ishtar portrays American intelligence agencies
as a bunch of bumbling, violent fools, as stupid as two clueless songwriters.
The film was supposed to be a
play on the Hope-Crosby Road to … movies of the 1940s, which is an odd kind of
comedy for a writer-director like May to make. She had made her directing
career up to this point making comedies in the so painfully real and awkward
they’re funny vein. The film she made before this – Mikey & Nicky – isn’t
really even a comedy, even though it has all the pain and awkwardness of her
two previous films. Ishtar is as broad as those films were specific – and it’s
a mode that doesn’t suit May well. She has always had physical comedy in her
movies – most noticeably in A New Leaf – but running gags involving a blind
camel ends up becoming incredibly drawn out and painful (especially since it
wasn’t really funny the first time).
A bigger problem is that Beatty
and Hoffman don’t seem overly comfortable playing idiots. Unlike, say George
Clooney, who is normally an actor who exudes intelligence, but is able to be
gloriously clueless in Coen brothers movies, these two just don’t scan as
nitwits. Both Beatty and Hoffman did the film because of loyalty to May – she
wrote Beatty’s directorial debut, Heaven Can Wait, and did uncredited re-writes
on Beatty’s Reds and the Hoffman starring Tootsie. Beatty has said he wanted to
give May the gift of this movie – she hadn’t directed in a decade, and Beatty
wanted to use his clout to get her another directing gig. As was normal for
both Beatty and May however, they clashed on set – and May almost walked off at
several points – Beatty didn’t push it back, because he didn’t want to direct
the film himself.
May
had fights with the studio on A New Leaf and Mikey & Nicky as well –
although unfortunately unlike on those two films, those conflicts all end up on
screen this time out. It’s unfortunate that Ishtar ended up being branded as
such a colossal failure, because May ended up in “movie jail” – and she’s never
really got out. Yes, she wrote the screenplays for Mike Nichols the Birdcage
and Primary Colors a decade later, but she has not directed another feature
since. That’s too bad, because three out of her four directed films are
actually very good. Ishtar isn’t as bad as its reputation – it’s just a run of
the mill misfire. Every director has them – it’s just that in May’s case, it
ended her directing career with a whimper, instead of a bang. She deserved
another shot.
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