I've heard a lot about Ishtar and I was eager to see if it was as bad as I had heard. There's good news and bad news for the film. The good news is that it isn't as bad as critics and the IMDb reviews would have you believe. However, let there be no mistake, it is not good. I grade films like it's school(10-A+, 9-A, 8-B, 7-C, 6-D, 5-F) so by giving it a 7 it may appear that I am giving it a rather good review for claiming it to be a waste of film. It's a D+ film that I rounded up to a C(7). The stars (especially Beatty with a dick van dyke level impression of a Texas accent that comes and (mostly) goes much like the humour in this film) are terrible and the singing and songwriting are so bad they're bad. It's skips past funny to be headache-inducingly annoying. Isabelle Adjani is pointless, the macguffin of the movie comes to nothing and the passionate freedom fighter seems to die in her when she meets and trusts the capitalist American government for inexplicable reasons. The only saving grace is Charles grodin, who delivers the only legitimate laughs in the film. Fortunately he's in a couple of scenes so there's about 10-15 minutes of actual humour. The biggest problem however is the editing of the film which is nonsensical and leaves the audience confused and wondering what the hell was going. The writing's not much better either but one feels that with improved directing, it could've been a lot better. So to reiterate, it's not the worst thing I've ever seen but I certainly wouldn't recommend it to anyone who has the full use of their ears. I expect it's much better with the sound off

I found out that both Siskel and Ebert voted this as the worst movie of 1987. It was on a list of movies considered the worst ever. I have in fact seen worse, but this is still quite bad. This movie features two bad singers who go to Morocco to try to become successful. What really sinks this movie is how dull it is. It just shows these two going around everywhere and nothing happening. Everything just seems so pointless. There's this one woman who is actually treated pretty badly in this movie. The subplot with her and the pointless romance is never even resolved! I had a hard time even believing that this was supposed to be a comedy. The jokes were so dull and lifeless. Dustin Hoffman's a good actor, but this isn't his best work. *1/2

This is unequivocally the second worst movie I every attempted to watch. Worse than Rushmore (and that takes some doing). Worse than the 2013 version of the Great Gatsby. Hell, this movie is worse than Plan 9 from Outer Space.However it is better than Blood Feast (1963). Barely.

This was a movie actually that I really wanted to like, but I gave it a chance and I disliked it intensely. It isn't completely laughter-free though, thank goodness, the business with the vultures and Charles Grodin's bungling CIA agent have their moments, but everything else is just sorry and redundant and that is including poor Isabelle Adjani.Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman are both fine actors, but as the tone-deaf songwriters, they can't do anything with their characters or dialogue and their chemistry together is oddball and not in a good way. For me, there wasn't a single likable character, the direction was sluggish, the film feels overlong and dull in the pace and the story is unfocused and never comes alive.I didn't think much of the production values and music either. The production values are okay but did little for me, while the music is forgettable. But the worst offender is the script which is just the epitome of crass, it isn't just that, it is also trite and racially-insensitive.Overall, a mess. 1/10 Bethany Cox