The Big Lebowski

When I reviewed Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, I stated that it's an acquired taste, much like olives and martinis. In mentioning, I forgot to include another acquired taste: the Coen brothers, and their 1998 hit The Big Lebowski. I first saw The Big Lebowski at Penn State, when it was featured as one of the late-night weekend movies at The Hub, and it just blew my mind as one of the most bizarre movies I'd ever seen (and not in a good way). I actually gave it a second viewing 5 years later, and still found it to be somewhat strange, but this time there was something catching about it, too—like something about it stayed with me and made me want to watch it over and over again . . . and this time, laugh and smile. Upon a third viewing, I did just that—lots of smiling and plenty of laughing! Since then, The Big Lebowski has become essential viewing.

In its most basic form, The Big Lebowski is largely a story of mistaken identity, though it features the most memorable yet totally unexpected hero of all: big-time slacker Jeff Lebowski aka "The Dude", played by a long-haired Jeff Bridges. The Dude, you see, is more an anti-hero than a hero, and is about as lazy a man as you can ever imagine—at least according to Sam Elliott's voiceover narration. He's an unemployed ex-hippie, drinks white Russians all day long, and spends his evenings bowling with his friends Walter and Donny (Coen regulars John Goodman and Steve Buscemi, respectively). But The Dude has one misfortune: he and a local millionaire businessman share the same name, and the millionaire Jeff Lebowski has a young trophy wife (a frequently underdressed Tara Reid) who owes money to the local adult-film publisher Hugh Hefner Jackie Treehorn, so one night The Dude comes home to find two thugs lying in wait in his apartment—thugs who think The Dude is the millionaire Lebowski. During their little raid, one of the thugs urinates on The Dude's rug—the rug that really tied the room together!

So The Dude approaches the millionaire Lebowski about possible compensation—but ends up getting sucked into a weird windfall when the millionaire Lebowski's trophy wife is kidnapped by a group of nihilists. Whereupon the millionaire Lebowski approaches The Dude to deliver the ransom . . . when all The Dude wants is his rug back.

But as we follow The Dude on his quest for his rug, he runs into a whole slew of weird characters, starting with the millionaire Lebowski's daughter Maude (played by Julianne Moore who donned a peculiar and unrecognizable accent), the nihilists who also star in porn films (with a name like Karl Hungus, what other job do you need?), an almost mute teenager who may or may not have bought a controversial new Corvette, an overweight landlord who turns out to be a remarkably bad ballet dancer—just to name a few. Philip Seymour Hoffman turns in a remarkably straight (and I do mean straight!) performance as the millionaire Lebowski's assistant Brandt! I kid you not—Hoffman played Brandt so straight as the ultimate all-smiling ass-kisser that you almost had to wonder if a rod was literally jammed up his ass. And Steve Buscemi took a lot of flack for playing a more silent role here as Donny (I've heard some call it a thankless role), but I believe the Coens even came out and stated that Donny was supposed to be a wallflower, given that his previous role in Fargo was a nonstop talker. And Sam Elliott's sarsaparilla-drinking cowboy . . . is he possibly supposed to be The Dude's guardian angel?

But with each weird character who appears on screen, we just continually wonder, as does The Dude . . . who the hell are these people??? I think my favorite moment of The Dude being creeped out by all these odd people is when he's visiting Maude, who gets a phone call from a friend, and she and another friend have a three-way phone call where all they do is giggle, with precious few words spoken in between. The completely perplexed look on The Dude's face is priceless.

But out of all these characters, it was John Goodman who utterly stole the show as The Dude's shell-shocked bowling friend Walter. I'd have to say that this is hands-down John Goodman's best role, simply because he's so outrageous a character in this film! Walter is a Vietnam veteran who literally lives in his own little world, where everything is related, however offhandedly, to Vietnam. He's so militant in every way possible—yet Goodman pulls it off in the funniest way possible. On first viewing, the average viewer might be unnerved at Walter's pulling a gun on a bowling buddy for disputing whether or not his roll was valid, but when he singlehandedly takes over the initial ransom drop, it's just downright hilarious how off-the-wall he plans things. The moment he says, "Here, Dude, take the ringer!", you just know it's going to be a hilarious disaster.

The dialogue is standard Coen dialogue: lots of overlapping discussions, nobody on the same page, at least one character off in his own quadrant. In other hands, dialogue like this may have fallen completely flat (like I think was the case in Barton Fink), but in the hands of Jeff Bridges and John Goodman, the dialogue works absolutely perfectly!



And it wouldn't be a Coen brothers movie without an appearance by John Turturro—whose cameo is without question the most off-the-wall scene in the whole movie. Let me tell ya, nobody can polish a bowling bowl like John Turturro!



I had to watch a few other Coen brothers movies to really understand their medium, and to be honest, I really haven't acquired a taste for them, beyond The Big Lebowski. I absolutely hated The Hudsucker Proxy and Barton Fink. Miller's Crossing, Fargo, and O Brother, Where Art Thou? were all okay, but nothing to really write home about (even though Fargo brought the Coens Academy attention). Blood Simple I found really satisfying, though. But what makes The Big Lebowski so watchable is The Dude! Without The Dude, The Big Lebowski would just be another Coen brothers offbeat comedy. That's not to say that The Big Lebowski is a bad movie; quite the opposite, actually! But I choose to view The Big Lebowski as almost a little fun that Joel and Ethan Coen are poking at themselves—i.e., The Big Lebowski is essentially The Dude getting caught up in a Coen brothers movie! And if you can allow yourself to be caught up in its unique blend of comedy, if you can appreciate splendid acting by Jeff Bridges and John Goodman, then The Big Lebowski will be an unforgettable ride—and in the end, you (like The Dude) will abide. 10 out of 10.