The Awkward Movie Challenge: Ishtar
According to Netflix, Mike and Jeffrey agree with each other on movies 84% of the time. In their weekly feature, The Awkward Movie Challenge, they search valiantly for that sweet 16% that results in big arguments and big laughs. Our candidate for Week One: the notorious 1987 flop Ishtar, directed by Elaine May and starring Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty.
Jeffrey:
A sand blast.
Ishtar is that worst kind of movie: the movie you expect to be unwatchable, but turns out to be merely mediocre. Upon its release in 1987, it quickly replaced Heaven’s Gate as the go-to synonym of choice for overblown box office disaster. It reportedly brought in only $12.7 million with a budget of $55 million, making it the most expensive comedy ever made at the time.
Watching the film, it’s difficult to tell where the money went. Although there are a few set pieces involving helicopters, most of the film takes place in interiors (is that a thing movie people say?) or in the desert … and how much can a permit to shoot in the desert cost? Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman raked in 5.5 million apiece for their performances, which was, apparently, a staggering amount at the time. It still seems pretty staggering, especially considering the fact that they are both woefully miscast.
Make no mistake about it, Ishtar is a bad film. Revisionists will tell you that it’s actually a dryly hilarious satire that was unfairly maligned due to its legendary budget woes and bitter critics. These revisionists are wrong. Is it dry? Yes. Is it hilarious? Not by a long shot. It is, however, not un-hilarious enough to qualify as a fun disaster. Most of the jokes — and there are lots and lots of jokes — drop out of the characters’ mouths and fall to the floor like leaden word balloons filled with a laughless soup (my coffee mug reads “World’s Greatest Simile Writer”).
