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Ishtar (Uncut) [DVD]

Warren Beatty (Actor, Producer), Dustin Hoffman (Actor), Elaine May (Director) Rated: Suitable for 15 years and over Format: DVD
4.1 out of 5 stars 232 ratings
IMDb4.7/10.0
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13 Sept. 2004 		—
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Product description

Uncut version of writer/director Elaine May's modern-day road movie in which Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman play two dim-witted and talentless singer-songwriters whose agent tells them to go as far away as possible. They are offered work in North Africa in the tiny nation of 'Ishtar' to entertain the US troops. But whilst trying to get there they become involved in a revolution and somehow they end up on different sides, trying to impress a freedom-fighter (Isabelle Adjani) who is riding behind a camel across the desert and being tailed by C.I.A. snipers. The songs were written by actor/musician Paul Williams.

Product details

  • Aspect Ratio ‏ : ‎ 16:9 - 1.85:1
  • Rated ‏ : ‎ Suitable for 15 years and over
  • Package Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 18.03 x 13.76 x 1.48 cm; 83.16 g
  • Manufacturer reference ‏ : ‎ 5050582285710
  • Director ‏ : ‎ Elaine May
  • Media Format ‏ : ‎ PAL
  • Run time ‏ : ‎ 1 hour and 43 minutes
  • Release date ‏ : ‎ 13 Sept. 2004
  • Actors ‏ : ‎ Charles Grodin, Dustin Hoffman, Isabelle Adjani, Jack Weston, Warren Beatty
  • Subtitles: ‏ : ‎ Arabic, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish
  • Studio ‏ : ‎ UCA
  • Producers ‏ : ‎ Warren Beatty
  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0002XP06O
  • Number of discs ‏ : ‎ 1
  • Best Sellers Rank: 94,143 in DVD & Blu-ray (See Top 100 in DVD & Blu-ray)
  • Customer reviews:
    4.1 out of 5 stars 232 ratings

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
232 global ratings

Customers say

Customers find the movie consistently funny. The acting quality and value for money receive mixed reviews.

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HumorValue for moneyActing quality
4 customers mention ‘Humor’4 positive0 negative

Customers find the movie consistently funny.

"...It does lose its way a bit sometimes, but overall very funny :)" Read more

"...not only well scripted, well acted, and beautifully shot, it is consistently funny...." Read more

"...A very off-beat comedy that requires one to be in a certain mood , its certainly not as bad as we have been led to believe ...." Read more

"Corny but fun!..." Read more

5 customers mention ‘Value for money’2 positive3 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the movie's value for money, with several finding it boring, while one describes it as brilliant.

"...benefit of about a month's hindsight I can say this is one of the most boring and worthless films I've ever watched...." Read more

"Brilliant film! Much maligned (unfairly) It does lose its way a bit sometimes, but overall very funny :)" Read more

"Corny film but we enjoyed it! Loved the main characters, they were a good pairing...." Read more

"...No a bad viewing all in all. It's worth just seeing for the funny songs." Read more

3 customers mention ‘Acting quality’1 positive2 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the acting in the movie.

"Confused, bad acting, a vanity project." Read more

"...As a film it is not only well scripted, well acted, and beautifully shot, it is consistently funny...." Read more

"...Dreadful direction, wooden acting, photography was well below par. Plot anyone?..." Read more

Top reviews from United Kingdom

  • B. Nyberg
    5.0 out of 5 stars A seriously underrated classic
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 10 August 2011
    Verified Purchase
    ISHTAR has been subjected to a smear campaign ever since it broke its production budget, something that is totally irrelevant to its value as a film. As a film it is not only well scripted, well acted, and beautifully shot, it is consistently funny. Compare it fairly with any of the old Hope/Crosby road movies, to which it pays tribute, and it is much, much cleverer. To condemn anything without a hearing is absurd, and yet so effective has been the whispering campaign against ISHTAR (politically motivated?), that despite brilliant performances by Hoffmann, Beatty, Adjani, & Grodin (a real standout), the only DVD available is this one in PAL format which requires a special all-zone player to view in the USA. Sad, very sad.
    11 people found this helpful
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  • E.Brett
    5.0 out of 5 stars Corny but fun!
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 March 2015
    Verified Purchase
    Corny film but we enjoyed it! Loved the main characters, they were a good pairing. Recommended for a nice way to spend a couple of hours where you don't have to concentrate much! Warning, their songs get stuck in your head!
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Richard G
    1.0 out of 5 stars Boriing -badly directed and shot & definately not worth the money.
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 21 June 2022
    Verified Purchase
    With the benefit of about a month's hindsight I can say this is one of the most boring and worthless films I've ever watched. Dreadful direction, wooden acting, photography was well below par. Plot anyone? Well it's your money - my recommendation would be to choose something else.
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  • T. Millar
    5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 26 June 2015
    Verified Purchase
    Brilliant film! Much maligned (unfairly)
    It does lose its way a bit sometimes, but overall very funny :)
    One person found this helpful
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  • Nigel#57
    4.0 out of 5 stars "There's a wardrobe of love in my eyes"
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 10 May 2016
    Verified Purchase
    This film is perhaps not a block buster but I have to say that as a musician I found the songs and soundtrack hilarious. Lyrics such as: "There's a wardrobe of love in my eyes. Step on in and pick something your size" add to the ironic nature of two failed singing entertainer's who write the most bizarre songs. Hoffman and Beatty are very good together and the fact that they are so different in height is amusing especially when they are on stage. I laughed at the scene where having wondered aimlessly through he dessert with a blind camel they are mistaken for interpreters for a group of arms dealers and Hoffman improvises an ethnic sounding language which nobody understands except Beatty! No a bad viewing all in all. It's worth just seeing for the funny songs.
    5 people found this helpful
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  • dan johansson
    5.0 out of 5 stars Ishtar
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 October 2023
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    Very good
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  • Brendan Ray Cyrus
    2.0 out of 5 stars It's pretty bad, but not as bad as its legend.
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 May 2008
    Verified Purchase
    Director-writer Elaine May ("The Heartbreak Kid") makes things even worse by casting Dustin as the smoothie know-it-all and Beatty as the dumb shlump when, if anything, those roles should have been reversed. The big-budget film (50 million dollars) remains as one of the all-time box office bombs. Though it might serve as a perverse delight for those who take pleasure in seeing a film that was not intended to be bad turn out so unforgivably bad. Its appeal is as a timeless oddity is almost assured with the advent of cheap second-hand dvds to see if it's as bad as most critics think.
    5 people found this helpful
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  • Dumon_RNR
    5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 9 October 2015
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    All good
    One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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  • P. RENIER
    5.0 out of 5 stars Que de souvenirs.
    Reviewed in France on 17 March 2014
    Verified Purchase
    Très chouette film même s'il semble avoir un peu vieilli mais c'est toujours un plaisir de le revoir, même les chameaux y sont sympas.
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  • Dia
    5.0 out of 5 stars Endearing and Enjoyable
    Reviewed in Canada on 2 January 2021
    Verified Purchase
    This is not a movie for the masses! However, it is fantastic for anyone who loves a really good story about two mediocre guys who get in way over their heads in a foreign country and come out on top. The antics and complications they encounter are laugh-out-loudable! I can watch this movie over and over. Their singing is hilariously not so great--it is designed to be that way for the movie. They remind me off kareoke night at our local watering hole--can we not all relate to that? This movie is a keeper.
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  • Balboa
    5.0 out of 5 stars BUEN PRODUCTO
    Reviewed in Spain on 17 January 2025
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    Edición en castellano con audio y subtítulos en castellano. De segunda mano en buen estado.
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    Balboa
    5.0 out of 5 stars
    BUEN PRODUCTO

    Reviewed in Spain on 17 January 2025
    Edición en castellano con audio y subtítulos en castellano. De segunda mano en buen estado.
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  • Beatlenik
    5.0 out of 5 stars What's Not To Love? Get Over The Bad Press and Give It A Try!
    Reviewed in the United States on 5 July 2018
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    Ishtar has been the butt of a lot of jokes and the definitive example of box office “flop” on many lists of “worst films ever made”. All undeserved and unfairly. Take for example that movie critics pretty much killed it before it even had a chance to premiere. An undercurrent of pre-release press literally destroyed the reputation and directorial future of Elaine May (a prime example of Hollywood male-domination where other male directors have had huge flops but gone on to make other fine pictures with a blank check). Ishtar is notorious in the “bomb” department only because a spiteful rumor mill instigated mainly by executives at a new studio that had inherited it, and had an agenda against both Hoffman and Beatty. There was trouble in the budget department fully out of the director’s and actor’s control that sent the dollars soaring (mainly due to shooting efforts in Morocco). In order to look like they were not at fault, executive producers backed out of post-production leaving the director and actors to flounder and it undermined the release by insinuating that the film was already a failure. There were other large issues, but inevitably Ishar was dead on release and critics were hostile without due cause. Supposedly, in hindsight, this was partially due to Beatty’s not-so-good relationship with the press after they gave him a work-over for Reds (he fought back and they retaliated through Ishtar). Previews actually went over well with audiences but after acrimonious writing by Siskel & Ebert and others, the box office release was dry and ruinous. If you are truly curious about the domino principle which made a quirky-funny homage to the old “Road Pictures” into an untouchable box office bomb, there are plenty of memoirs on the internet. However…

    In reality, Ishtar is a nice adventure comedy that is both silly in the Beatles “Help!” vein, an obvious nod to the Hope and Crosby 40’s Road To… pictures, and uses some rather subtle devices that require an attentive mind (for instance the persona/role reversal of the usual Hoffman and Beatty characters, where Beatty is the more bumbling fool of the two and Hoffman is the more self-confident and “suave”, if one can call him that, partner). Charles Grodin is as far from a sharp and intellectual CIA agent as you can imagine, and the acclaimed French actress Isabelle Adjani plays sexuality way down in near imitation of an awkward boy throughout the film. The whole film is rampant with ironic twists, especially if you know the cast well. This was due to Elaine May’s script and her deft directorial hand which was then castigated by the Hollywood Press who made no attempt to disguise their intent to send the picture to movie hell. I found Roger Ebert’s original ’87 review of Ishtar on his website and read it for the first time since reading it in ’87. It seemed somehow vile and malignant that a critic with his impeccable talents would be just slightly forgiving; he has given a lot of “bad” movies a pass for at least some redeeming factors and I thought I would find one here, I didn’t. The deadpan he found in the film, he refused to open his eyes and realize that the intentional two-dimensional self-immolating characters are 80’s precursors to Shallow Hal.

    The songs written by Paul Williams for the inept duo of Simon & Garfunkel wannabe’s are nothing short of hilarious, especially if you hold the lyrics up to comparison with songs from the classic rock and folk eras. Laugh out loud hilarious. The singing is intentionally as awful as you can imagine.

    The vistas and cinematography for the film are beautiful and the Dolby/DTS sound are incredibly good in the Bluray version of the film. My only complaint with the Bluray is that given the nature of this film and its history, a nice documentary on the movie as an extra would have been appreciated by the film industry fans, perhaps a look back on the debacle with fresh eyes (if anyone has even attempted that). Leave it to say that at roughly $10 for the Bluray, you get the movie and only the movie in the highest quality picture and sound available currently with no frills.

    I think history, from the look of many of these reviews giving Ishtar a total average of 4 Stars, is being much kinder to the film than what it suffered in the 80’s and 90’s. A new audience will possibly like this for what it was intended to be, without prejudice, and old cinema geeks who liked it as a quality “bad” picture will certainly get a kick out of it. Then there are the accolades from the industry talents. Quentin Tarantino loves it. Martin Scorsese has called it one of his favorite movies of all time. And even in today’s press, The New Yorker magazine has written Ishtar is a "wrongly maligned masterwork… There's a level of invention, a depth of reflection, and a tangle of emotions in 'Ishtar' which are reached by few films and few filmmakers."

    I hope those of you who have avoided seeing this picture simply out of “reputation” might give it a chance. This release is promoted as The Director’s Cut version. It is actually two minutes shorter than the theatrical release, but no one, including me, has any idea what is missing. It has been too long since screening this in a theater, the last time I actually saw it, so if anyone has an eidetic memory and can answer the question, comments would be welcome!
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  • "hjsturm"
    5.0 out of 5 stars Der absolute Geheimtip!!!
    Reviewed in Germany on 7 September 2004
    Verified Purchase
    Endlich, endlich gibt es Ishtar auf DVD. Das ist mit ziemlicher Sicherheit der meistunterschätzte Film von Dustin Hoffman und Warren Beatty. Die beiden als Simon und Garfunkel Verschnitt ist schon alleine sehenswert. Die selbstkomponierten Lieder sind herrlich grauslig. Hört mal auf die Texte. Die beiden haben keine Angst sich lächerlich zu machen und nehmen sich gehörig selbst auf die Schippe.
    Unterstützt werden sie von Charles Grodin (u.a. bekannt aus Dave oder der Couchtrip - beide ebenfalls super), der als CIA Agent die beiden für seine Zwecke einspannen will.
    Der Film gehört zu der Sorte, den man sich gemeinsam mit Freunden, diversen Getränken und Knabberkram ansieht und jeder die Highlights mitsprechen kann. So wie bei Leben des Bryan;-))
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