The Big Lebowski Reviews

The clear progeny of Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye, itself a noir story filmed with detached air quotes, The Big Lebowski is both a love letter and complete deconstruction of the Raymond Chandler style of dense, incomprehensible crime story. Oh, it’s also a merrily sardonic film filled to the brim with quotable dialog and one of the greatest performances of Jeff Bridges’ career, maybe the definitive performance. It’s also one of the densest films the Coen Brothers have made thus far, which is really saying something as many of their films are tricky, thick narratives.

As the cavalcade of colorful characters introduce themselves to the ever-shifting story and the story becomes increasingly circular, it becomes crystal clear that The Big Lebowski about mood and dialog above all else. The central mystery doesn’t matter, nor does the fact that the Dude is in over his head, but the attitude of the film is what ensnares you and keeps you going.

I mean, this is a film where the central character is a stoner who wears jellies, drinks White Russians, and uses bowling as his life’s great constant. It’s the Dude, or “Duderino, if you’re not into the whole brevity thing,” that abides and drives the ship here. As such, you needed an actor as comfortable with various styles of acting as Bridges. He of the seemingly endless range, he who appears as at ease in a Terry Gilliam ubran fantasia as he does in strict dramas and broad comedies, combines all of his different skills into one major role that is impossible to imagine under anyone else’s guiding hands.

Bridges appears to be effortlessly embodying the part with no visible acting involved. It’s a strange performance as he must inhabit a character that seemingly never registers much emotionally while also delivering various comedic bits with a straight face. He must play a character that is eternally in a fog but smart enough to game an ever-shifting number of players vying for his attention. It’s a tricky part but one that Bridges eases into from his first moment on screen until his last variation of “fuck it, let’s bowl.”

If the labyrinthine structure of The Big Lebowski reflects the basic architecture of a Raymond Chandler novel, then the Dude is Philip Marlowe as hippie burnout. Much like that private eye, the Dude operates by his own moral code and singular motivation, in this case revenge for his ruined rug that “really tied the room together.” His simplistic motivation spirals out into cadre of oddball characters that feel lifted from Chandler’s writings – rich businessman, free-spirit daughter, gold digger wife, cops on a familiar basis with the hero, the muscle putting the squeeze on the hero and his cohorts. They’re all present and accounted for and revealed to be ultimately unimportant.

The Dude always returns to a Zen-like state, typically by drinking a White Russian, sparking up, and doing a few roads of bowling with his friends. Those friends are Coen mainstays Steve Buscemi and John Goodman in what have to be the most memorable and vibrant supporting performances in a film littered with idiosyncratic characters. Goodman’s violatile Vietnam vet frequently calms himself down by declaring that they go back to bowling. This mantra is less an admission of defeat at any given point in the film and more a sort of spiritual regrouping, a centering process of sorts, a reminder that life can and will go on.

After all, the Dude abides.

Surprisingly, according to the IMDb ratings, this movie is, the best one delivered by the Coen brothers so far. On the other hand, it does have a huge cult following. Personally, I actually always go back and forth with this movie. Indeed, depending on my mood, I would find it really awesome but, at some other moment, it would be only decent. In fact, I actually saw the damned thing in the movie theater when it was released and, at the time, I thought it was a step down from ‘Fargo’ but, after a few re-watch, it did grow on me after all. Anyway, there was plenty of stuff to enjoy in this flick, no doubt about it. Indeed, the cast was just awesome (John Goodman, Julianne Moore, Steve Buscemi, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Tara Reid, Peter Stormare, John Turturro, David Thewlis, Sam Elliott) and, like anyone else, I especially loved Jeff Bridges who gave here his best and most legendary performance. Finally, it was probably the funniest movie those guys made so far. To conclude, even though I’m not sure if it was really their best movie, it is still pretty much a major cult-classic and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in the Coen brothers’s work. 

Honestly, what is there to say about The Big Lebowski that hasn't already been declared thousands of times before? It seems practically redundant to pen a critique of this particular motion picture. Thus, I've undertaken this review to present a different opinion - an opinion which will be grilled, criticised, and won't be widely shared...

The writer-director duo of Joel & Ethan Coen are dotingly recognised for their unparalleled ability to conceive vividly-drawn characters, beguiling stories and brilliantly peculiar cinematic experiences in general. They manage to construct inventive stories that conform to familiar generic conventions but are wrapped in outlandish and original settings, and the result entertains endlessly. The Big Lebowski is extensively regarded as a cult comedy classic - it performed poorly at the box office (scoring less than $18 million from a reported budget of $15 million), yet various viewers and critics worldwide adore it, quote it limitlessly, and worship it religiously. But alas, through the eyes of this reviewer, The Big Lebowski is undeserving of its accolades and cult status. This is a dreary, unfunny, virtually unwatchable filmic concoction. Its diminutive plot exists as a paltry excuse to showcase off-the-wall character vignettes as the actors stroll through strange scenarios. Normally, slender plots can be overlooked if there's sufficient fun to be had. In the case of The Big Lebowski, though, the film grows tedious very quickly.

Here's the essential vibe of the plot (if it can even be labelled as such):
Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski (Bridges) is a lowlife, unemployed slacker who loves bowling, White Russians and Creedence Clearwater Revival. A group of inept crooks mistake the Dude for a millionaire businessman, and urinate on his rug in an attempt to coerce him into paying a debt he has absolutely no knowledge of. Seeking retribution for his soiled rug, the Dude visits the wealthy Jeff Lebowski (Huddleston) and soon becomes a patsy when he's embroiled in a case of kidnapping and extortion.