Today's Mini-Review: The Big Lebowski

Big Lebowski, The

Rating: ****/*****, or 8/10

Outrageously zany, off-beat comedy the likes only the Coen Brothers can provide. Life is tough for the pot smoking all-round slacker Jeffrey Lebowski, more commonly referred to as “The Dude” (Jeff Bridges in one of the most defining roles of his career). Sharing his last name with a millionaire, he's victimized by thugs who mistake him for that rich man (who owes them a debt), a situation which finds his beloved rug in ruin after having been urinated upon by the perpetrators. When he visits his namesake to try and get him to pay for its cleaning, he soon gets more than he bargained for as he finds himself caught up in what appears to be a kidnap of the wealthy man's trophy wife, but swiftly explodes into a bizarre, inexplicable potpourri of events beyond anybody's control or understanding, thanks to the involvement of a host of wacky, maniacal and thoroughly enjoyable characters, ranging from feminist/nihilist artists and pornographers to White Russians and generally random folk annex narrators. Yet all The Dude asked for was a clean rug and an opportunity to win the local bowling alley's competition he trained so hard for with his two best buddies (John Goodman with severe anger management problems and Steve Buscemi who can't take a hint when he's asked to shut up). The Coens don't ask you to make sense of it all, they just want you to roll with it (pun intended), as The Dude does himself. Nevertheless, despite this absence of a clearly defined plot, or more likely because of it, The Big Lebowski proves all kinds of fun. The pair of directors used the same tactic a decade later with Burn After Reading to similar results, proving them the masters of this subgenre of 'nonsensicomedy' (for the record, I just made that term up and I hope it catches on). In both cases they were aided by an impressive cast of character actors and/or movie stars who felt like doing something different for a change, in The Big Lebowski's case including Philip Seymour Hoffman, John Turturro, Julianne Moore and Sam Elliott. Though the film was met with moderately tempered critical reviews and disappointing box office results back in 1998, time has proven the Coens right, as it has since become a widely accepted cult classic with serious tendencies towards an eventual, seemingly unavoidable shedding of the moniker 'cult'. When Burn After Reading came along in 2008, the majority of both audience and critics finally understood this type of film, and that movie did much, much better business accordingly.

Starring: Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi

Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen

USA/UK: Polygram Filmed Entertainment, 1998