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"A smart, generous, genuinely funny affair."—Sheila Benson, Los Angeles Times
"The most underappreciated commercial movie of 1987."—Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
35th Anniversary Presentation
In perhaps the ultimate case of undeserved backlash, this movie has earned a reputation as being among the worst films ever made. This could not be further from the truth, but as we know, "telling the truth can be dangerous business." Lyle Rogers (Warren Beatty) and Chuck Clarke (Dustin Hoffman) are a pair of failed songwriters who think they've found their big break when an agent offers to book the duo for a gig in a Moroccan hotel. But due to a series of unfortunate events involving a mysterious woman at the airport (Isabel Adjandi) and a CIA agent (Charles Grodin), the two end up in the middle of a plot to overthrow the Emir of Ishtar. Now Rogers and Clarke will never be the next Simon and Garfunkel.
The production of the film was a historically troubled one to be sure, but the studio and others involved with the project made sure that it was dead on arrival, leaking stories to the press that would cement its reputation before it was ever shown to an audience. In the 35 years since the film's release, the laugh out loud buddy comedy that subverted the established off screen personas of its two leads has rightfully gained a cult following but remains a punching bag for those who bought into the initial hype. Seeing is believing, and there's no better example of that then what The Far Side creator Gary Larson said in reflecting on his own jab depicting it as the only film in Hell's video store: "There are so many cartoons for which I should probably write an apology, but this is the only one which compels me to do so."