ISHTAR. Directed and written by Elaine May; produced by Warren Beatty for Columbia. Starring Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty. Rated PG (a little bad language, a few sexual references).
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Some movies would kill for Ishtar's starpower. But, ironically, it's the high-octane personas of its stars that leave it practically dead in the water.
They make it just too hard to get into the very silly story. With a couple of lesser-knowns, who nonetheless had a good feel for director/writer May's subtle sense of humor, some other Ishtar might have been a memorable comedy.
Even as it is, though, it'a quite funny at times. Most of the laughs come either from Charles Grodin, who perhaps should have played one of the leads, or from—and this is the truth—a blind camel.
Much of Ishtar' s screenplay is almost good enough to overcome its other problems. A couple of May's bits of background humor or throwaway gags are worth a much as a lot of writers' whole scripts.
Lyle (Beatty) and Chuck (Hoffman) are a pair of aspiring songwriters in New York as Ishtar begins. You could say they are down on their luck; but they've never had any to be up on.
They have a considerable talent for coming up with horribly comic lyrics (that they think are seriously terrific), but for little else. Inexplicably, they have always been obsessed with this desperate desire to write songs, even to the point of driving away wives and girlfriends.
An agent suggests that they take their act on the road—to Marrakech, to be specific. On the way, at a stopover in mythical Ishtar, they accidently become embroiled in a Middle Eastern power struggle.
Eventually they tangle with the CIA, a Moslem despot, some revolutionaries and, of course, the aforementioned camel, not to mention vocal nightclubbers wanting to hear "Strangers in the Night."
Similar in storyline and silliness to the old Bing Crosby/Bob Hope "Road" movies, it occasionally matches their comic success. All the scenes with the camel are hilarious, and the one in the club where everyone has a great time singing along old standards with the tonedeaf Lyle and Chuck is funny, too.
But most of the time, it's too hard to buy the main characters. Both Beatty and Hoffman can do comedy; Shampoo and Tootsie are two of the best around. But here it takes too long to see past them as big stars doing a weird kind of slumming.
Part of the problem is that Lyle and Chuck are just such unbelievable characters, largely because we can see no motivation for their actions. Why do they put themselves through such agony trying to do something for which they're so obviously ill-suited? Their situation is funny, but it's sad, too, and also a little too stupid to gain our sympathy.
Chuck is the smarter of the two, a fast-talking hustler, so Hoffman has the showier role. He has a good scene in the desert where Chuck has to pretend to be an Arab auctioneer.
Lyle is pretty dumb and can't really function apart from Chuck. It's his dim-wittedness that leads to the purchase of the blind camel, though. So as far as Ishtar is concerned, in practical terms, his ignorannce is justified.
Ishtar is good for a few laughs. It's just a shame there weren't more.
June 3, 1987