Pretty pointless but funny at times

Rating: 7/10 (23 April 2012)

A stoner called The Dude is mistaken for a millionaire who shares his name, the big Lebowski. This rich man's wife owes cash to a goon. She is subsequently kidnapped and the big Lebowski assigns The Dude the task of being the bag man in return for a load of money. The mission is screwed up, however, when The Dude's friend Walter joins in and messes things up. This leaves The Dude in a shaky position where he has to attempt to reclaim the money.
This is a defiantly pointless film. It's a crime-comedy with very little emphasis on realism. It's played for laughs pure and simple. It benefits from an impressive cast. Jeff Bridges is good in the lead role, with some funny support performances from John Turturro as a sleazy bowler and Philip Seymour-Hoffman as the big Lebowski's personal assistant. Although I found John Goodman a little overbearing and annoying to tell you the truth. It's a highly stylised film, which you would probably expect coming from the Coen brothers. It isn't always as funny as it thinks it is though, although there are admittedly a number of very funny moments. It was nice to hear some good sounds in this one though. In particular a couple of ultra-cool laid back tunes from early 70's Italian movies, namely Piacere Sequence by Teo Usuelli (taken from the giallo 'Amuck') and Traffic Boom by Piero Piccioni (taken from the comedy 'All Screwed Up') - the latter of which was the soundtrack to the film within a film here.
Its story-line is very unfocused, maybe that's the point I suppose but it certainly means that in order to enjoy the film you need to be able to overlook this. It's surely no coincidence that lots of people say they weren't too keen on this film the first time they saw it and it took subsequent viewings to appreciate. I myself am pretty much the same and this no doubt explains its lukewarm performance at the box office and then it's slow-burning success on home video. Having said all this, despite being an entertaining film, I still find it kind of hard to understand the real appeal of this movie. An amusing enough flick for sure but not a grade A Coen movie in my opinion.