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80
|
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]
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75
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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]
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70
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Washington Post Desson Thomson
Ishtar is an unabashed vamp for a pair of household names, and as such it works, often hilariously.
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63
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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.
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50
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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]
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50
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San Francisco Chronicle
It's worth seeing the movie just to observe [Grodin's] delicious blend of unctuous manipulation and anti-Communist sanctimoniousness. [15 May 1987]
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40
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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)]
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30
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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.
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25
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Christian Science Monitor
The funny scenes are as far apart as oases in the Sahara. [22 May 1987]
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12
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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.
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