Obnoxious characters swamped in a story that is much too pretentious and complicated for its own good

Rating: 5/10 (9 March 2012)

Here are the highlights of "The Big Lebowski." The opening scene with Jeff Bridges, as a never-do-well being comically ambushed by two men in his home, one of whom urinates on his living room rug. Mr. Bridges again, dropping a joint on his crotch while he's driving and careening into a trash can. Mr. Bridges yet again babbling absolute nonsense, trying to fake his way out of a jam. Mr. Bridges, yes he, being bonked in the head with a ceramic mug.
You would think that these moments, coupled with the fact that Mr. Bridges plays the lead, would make "The Big Lebowski" a deliriously funny comedy. But alas, it's just valiantly unsuccessful. For Mr. Bridges is far more interesting than the dopey character that's been written for him by his directors, the much-lauded Joel and Ethan Coen. And those highlights were predominantly jabs of slapstick: the only truly funny moments in the film, much more than the pseudo-insights of American culture and pornography. Another great moment, this one featuring John Goodman, has him bashing up a would-be perpetrator's car with a crowbar, only to have a neighbor (the real owner of the car) come screaming out of the house, taking the crowbar, and bashing in Mr. Bridges's car instead.
In other words, when the writer/directors go for simplistic and old-fashioned slapstick, coupled with their terrific wide-screen techniques and misc en scene, really works. It's the rest of their pretentious sense of humor that does not work. For once again, they have nose-dived into a pool of complexity, stretching out for something they don't quite have the understanding to reach. They have the ideas; what they lack is the patience to compose it in a way that not only communicates their ideas to the audience, but make it fascinating at the same time. For example, they add some pornographic subtext to the game of bowling (they might just be the only filmmakers to ever do that) but what exactly it means comes up very fuzzily. As is the show-stopping moment where Mr. Bridges goes into a drug-induced hallucination with him and Julianne Moore in an unnervingly peculiar bowling/sex extravaganza. What exactly, do I mean? I'm not sure, and I am not about to watch the film a second time, because it had me restless thirty minutes in.
Mr. Bridges does a nice enough job playing a character so sloppy and whiny that it borders on the ridiculous. And not in a good way. It's funny to have him cry out "I'm the Dude!" the first few times, but when it happens again and again for two hours, it really wears thin. As does John Goodman screaming at Steve Buscemi "Shut the (expletive) up, Donny!" Speaking of Mr. Goodman, he pours a lot of energy into his role, and I guess I cannot honestly say his performance is bad, but it became tiring seeing him on-camera after a while. The fault lies in the character, who is much too obnoxious and redundant to be funny. Mr. Buscemi gives a much more likable performance for a much more likable character, but is hardly on screen. How sad is that? Well, not his denouement.
Surround these characters with a lumpy story far too complicated for its own good and you've got a dull picture. "The Big Lebowski" is clearly aiming to make commentaries of such, as demonstrated by Sam Elliott's out-of-the-blue appearances here and there in the picture, but they become lost in a pretentiously muddled screenplay.
The Coen brothers are good directors. They have great craftsmanship. A key moment is when the camera takes a bowling ball's point-of-view as it thunders down a lane. Slow-motion shots of the pins scattering, though gimmicky and seen before, are also fun to look at. So they can direct; they have talent! Immense talent. But they really do need to hire somebody to rework their screenplays, for that is where they fall short more often than not. Come the end of "The Big Lebowski," I was not pondering over what Sam Elliott had just said in his closing speech, and what it had to do with all that happened in the two hours before, but instead, this.
In the scene where Mr. Bridges and Mr. Goodman are having a would-be sentimental moment by the ocean, who was that character I saw walking on the hill crest in the top-right section of the screen?