El Gran Lebowsky (The Big Lebowski )
Jeff Bridges (as The Dude), John Goodman (as Walter Sobchak), Julianne Moore (as Maude Lebowski), Steve Buscemi (as Donny), David Huddleston (as The Big Lebowski), Philip Seymour Hoffman (as Brandt), Tara Reid (as Bunny Lebowski), Philip Moon (as Treehorn Thug), Mark Pellegrino (as Treehorn Thug), Peter Stormare (as Nihilist), Flea (as Nihilist), Torsten Voges (as Nihilist), Jimmie Dale Gilmore (as Smokey), Jack Kehler (as Dude's Landlord), John Turturro (as Jesus Quintana)
Rating: 9.5-"A must see for everyone with a serious interest in film. Casual film fans will almost certainly like it as well."
On one level a slice-of-life drama about a couple guys whose life revolves around bowling, the Big Lebowski is at the same time a surreal nightmare--it is a Coen Brothers movie, after all--and relays a message that manages to be both positive and depressing at the same time about "taking it easy" in the face of adversity.
Jeff Bridges, as "Dude" Lebowski, is a bum of sorts, but by choice. He doesn't care to do much but get high, drive around and bowl. One day, a couple unsavory characters ambush him at home because, foolishly, they mixed him up with another Lebowski who is a millionaire and whose wife owes them money. One of the men who ambush Dude urinates on his rug. Dude usually takes everything easy, but the incident with the rug upsets him enough to track down the millionaire Lebowski to try to get reimbursed. And that's the start of his descent into a series of events that may leave him wiser, but in no better shape materially.
Both Bridges and John Goodman, as his buddy Walter, are superb. Steve Buscemi, as the third member of their bowling group, is also excellent but is a bit underused here. All three display their ability to play a wide variety of roles, as their characters are not exactly like anything they've done before.
The story is intriguing, and the script, pared down to the basics, would make a good film in many hands. But this is a Coen Brothers movie and that means that The Big Lebowski isn't just a plain old film, it's a journey into quirktown. Putting the Coen Brothers' touch on a film is like having Berkeley Breathed in an Outland mood redecorate your life while John Waters redecorates your home. Some people love this about the Coen Brothers. Others it irritates. I'm in the former crowd.
All the characters are caricatures of sorts, but not necessarily in a comic book way. The Coen Brothers have a knack for creating characters that are personalities who exaggeratedly stretch envelopes almost into flat sheets of paper, but who are so complex that it would take an army of psychiatrists 25 years to figure out. So Dude Lebowski is a slacker/stoner, but he's also a kind of philosopher at heart who should be teaching college, perhaps, but it's just too much bother to have to take off his shorts and robe. Walter is a crazed vet who contextualizes everything with respect to the Vietnam War, but he's also a reserved, nice, traditional guy. He might have been a banker if he wasn't nuts.
On top of the masterful characters, the Coen Brothers have a knack for seamlessly segueing from normal dramatic sequences to surreal, flowing, dreamlike sequences that we're never sure if they're simply in characters' minds or not. It's like a cinematic depiction of a committed philosophic idealist's mind. This technique is helped in that the surreal segues don't just occur with literal dreamlike material, but in the way one "realist" scene flows to the next--the way odd characters come out of the woodwork in the realist scenes and do odd things. It's a bit hard to describe to someone who hasn't seen any of the Coen Brothers' work, but it's an incredible feat of filmmaking that is sure to be emulated for years to come.
Unfortunately, though, as good as The Big Lebowski is, it is not entirely without flaw--which explains the 9.5 rather than a 10 or even my yet-to-be-invoked 10.5. The flaw lies in the idealist depiction itself. The technique can be a hard thing to reign in, and unlike their Barton Fink (Raising Arizona was a 10, in my opinion also, but had a different flavor stylistically), they don't always tame the method here. A few times The Big Lebowski came too close to the edge of meandering--so that one's attention meanders, also. Arguably, maybe this is an effect they were consciously shooting for--it reflects Dude Lebowski's mind, perhaps. Still, I can't help feel that it was a very minor flaw.
Certainly a flaw worth half a point shouldn't deter anyone from seeing this film. Even if the Coen Brothers' style isn't exactly your bag, they are serious, important commercial filmmakers, and The Big Lebowski is an excellent film. If you're not already familiar with their style, I wouldn't recommend seeing this one first (see Raising Arizona if your tastes lean more towards twisted humor, Barton Fink if your tastes lean more towards existentialist drama; The Big Lebowski is a bit of a cross between the two), but this is definitely a must see for any serious film fan--"important" cinema while still being one heck of an entertaining film. An ideal combination
On one level a slice-of-life drama about a couple guys whose life revolves around bowling, the Big Lebowski is at the same time a surreal nightmare--it is a Coen Brothers movie, after all--and relays a message that manages to be both positive and depressing at the same time about "taking it easy" in the face of adversity.
Jeff Bridges, as "Dude" Lebowski, is a bum of sorts, but by choice. He doesn't care to do much but get high, drive around and bowl. One day, a couple unsavory characters ambush him at home because, foolishly, they mixed him up with another Lebowski who is a millionaire and whose wife owes them money. One of the men who ambush Dude urinates on his rug. Dude usually takes everything easy, but the incident with the rug upsets him enough to track down the millionaire Lebowski to try to get reimbursed. And that's the start of his descent into a series of events that may leave him wiser, but in no better shape materially.
Both Bridges and John Goodman, as his buddy Walter, are superb. Steve Buscemi, as the third member of their bowling group, is also excellent but is a bit underused here. All three display their ability to play a wide variety of roles, as their characters are not exactly like anything they've done before.
The story is intriguing, and the script, pared down to the basics, would make a good film in many hands. But this is a Coen Brothers movie and that means that The Big Lebowski isn't just a plain old film, it's a journey into quirktown. Putting the Coen Brothers' touch on a film is like having Berkeley Breathed in an Outland mood redecorate your life while John Waters redecorates your home. Some people love this about the Coen Brothers. Others it irritates. I'm in the former crowd.
All the characters are caricatures of sorts, but not necessarily in a comic book way. The Coen Brothers have a knack for creating characters that are personalities who exaggeratedly stretch envelopes almost into flat sheets of paper, but who are so complex that it would take an army of psychiatrists 25 years to figure out. So Dude Lebowski is a slacker/stoner, but he's also a kind of philosopher at heart who should be teaching college, perhaps, but it's just too much bother to have to take off his shorts and robe. Walter is a crazed vet who contextualizes everything with respect to the Vietnam War, but he's also a reserved, nice, traditional guy. He might have been a banker if he wasn't nuts.
On top of the masterful characters, the Coen Brothers have a knack for seamlessly segueing from normal dramatic sequences to surreal, flowing, dreamlike sequences that we're never sure if they're simply in characters' minds or not. It's like a cinematic depiction of a committed philosophic idealist's mind. This technique is helped in that the surreal segues don't just occur with literal dreamlike material, but in the way one "realist" scene flows to the next--the way odd characters come out of the woodwork in the realist scenes and do odd things. It's a bit hard to describe to someone who hasn't seen any of the Coen Brothers' work, but it's an incredible feat of filmmaking that is sure to be emulated for years to come.
Unfortunately, though, as good as The Big Lebowski is, it is not entirely without flaw--which explains the 9.5 rather than a 10 or even my yet-to-be-invoked 10.5. The flaw lies in the idealist depiction itself. The technique can be a hard thing to reign in, and unlike their Barton Fink (Raising Arizona was a 10, in my opinion also, but had a different flavor stylistically), they don't always tame the method here. A few times The Big Lebowski came too close to the edge of meandering--so that one's attention meanders, also. Arguably, maybe this is an effect they were consciously shooting for--it reflects Dude Lebowski's mind, perhaps. Still, I can't help feel that it was a very minor flaw.
Certainly a flaw worth half a point shouldn't deter anyone from seeing this film. Even if the Coen Brothers' style isn't exactly your bag, they are serious, important commercial filmmakers, and The Big Lebowski is an excellent film. If you're not already familiar with their style, I wouldn't recommend seeing this one first (see Raising Arizona if your tastes lean more towards twisted humor, Barton Fink if your tastes lean more towards existentialist drama; The Big Lebowski is a bit of a cross between the two), but this is definitely a must see for any serious film fan--"important" cinema while still being one heck of an entertaining film. An ideal combination
SINOPSIS:
Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski is the ultimate LA slacker, until one day his house is broken into and his rug is peed on by two angry gangsters who have mistaken him for Jeffrey Lebowski, the LA millionaire, whose wife owes some bad people some big money. The Dude becomes entangled in the plot when he goes to visit the real Lebowski in order to get some retribution for his soiled rug, and is recruited to be the liason between Lebowski and the captors of his now "kidnapped" wife.
Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski is the ultimate LA slacker, until one day his house is broken into and his rug is peed on by two angry gangsters who have mistaken him for Jeffrey Lebowski, the LA millionaire, whose wife owes some bad people some big money. The Dude becomes entangled in the plot when he goes to visit the real Lebowski in order to get some retribution for his soiled rug, and is recruited to be the liason between Lebowski and the captors of his now "kidnapped" wife.