Ishtar

Los Angeles Times Sheila Benson

A smart, generous, genuinely funny affair. Sometimes, like the camel who almost ambles away with the picture, it's longish in the tooth, but it is based on an extremely astute vision of life. [15 May 1987]

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

The most underestimated commercial movie of 1987 may not be quite as good as Elaine May's three previous features, but it's still a very funny work by one of this country's greatest comic talents.

Chicago Tribune Dave Kehr

Ishtar is a good movie, but you can't help but wonder if, lurking somewhere in those cans of outtakes, there isn't a great movie, too. [15 May 1987]

Variety David Rooney

Enter Charles Grodin, who upstages all involved via his savagely comical portrayal of a CIA agent.

Time Richard Schickel

Reasonably genial and diverting. [18 May 1987]

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Ishtar is an unabashed vamp for a pair of household names, and as such it works, often hilariously.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jay Scott

Is it worth seeing? Yes. The ability to charm in the modern world is rare, and Ishtar does charm. Essentially, it's a teen film for adults, which is to say, it's mindless but not stupid good fun. And there are at least four times when the audience laughs out loud.

San Francisco Chronicle Judy Stone

It's worth seeing the movie just to observe [Grodin's] delicious blend of unctuous manipulation and anti-Communist sanctimoniousness. [15 May 1987]

The New York Times Elvis Mitchell

The worst of it is painless; the best is funny, sly, cheerful and, here and there, even genuinely inspired. [15 May 1987, p.C3]

Wall Street Journal Julie Salamon

Hoffman and Beatty are so tone-deaf they don't even know how to play the songs for deadpan humor. They seem old, white, and without shtick. [14 May 1987, p.26(E)]

TV Guide Angel Cohn

For all the bad press Ishtar received, it does have a certain odd charm... The biggest problem is that any attempted subtlety is swamped by May's bid to turn the film into an epic adventure story.

Film Threat Brad Laidman

The guys in Ishtar are the boring wallflowers of the world. They probably shouldn't be mocked, disgraced and beaten, but who really wants to spend close to two hours with them.

The New Yorker Pauline Kael

When Beatty and Hoffman doe their (deliberately hopeless) singing numbers, jerking like mechanical men, phrasing unmusically, going off-key, they don't have the slapstick skills for it. That's when you long for Martin and Murray, or some other comics. [1 June 1987, p.102]

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

It's piddling -- a hangdog little comedy with not enough laughs...its spirit rattles around inside it like a marble in an oil drum.

Christian Science Monitor Staff (Uncredited)

The funny scenes are as far apart as oases in the Sahara. [22 May 1987]

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

A truly dreadful film, a lifeless, massive, lumbering exercise in failed comedy. Elaine May, the director, has mounted a multimillion-dollar expedition in search of a plot so thin that it hardly could support a five-minute TV sketch.