An elaborately antic musical of startling, even disturbing, originality.

The film fails at every level.

It is 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.

The 1980s saw the release of so many truly atrocious films (Stroker Ace, Bolero, Shanghai Surprise, etc.) that it's absurd "Ishtar" became shorthand for the worst of the worst and continues to be blasted by nitwits who haven't even seen it.