A Coen Bros. Classic!

Rating: 10/10 (12 May 2011)

This masterpiece comedy from the Coen brothers with an unforgettable performance by Jeff Bridges as the Dude had an abysmal theatrical run, but it has generated a cult around it since it hit video. The Dude is the ultimate stoner, a slacker role model for the offbeat whose claim to fame is his superior skills as a bowler and the authorship of the Port Huron Statement. Whether Bridges likes it or not, he will always be a symbol of the rebellious counterculture. As his close friend Walter Sobchak, John Goodman is obnoxiously hilarious, whether he is whining about the buddies that he lost in Vietnam or his pseudo Jewish heritage, and John Turturro is just as outrageous as a weaselly sexual predator. The characters that make up "The Big Lebowski" qualify as a diverse group.
The Coen brothers deal with the theme of mistaken identities and a supposed kidnapping. Two of Jackie Treehorn's moronic thugs attack the Dude (Jeff Bridges) at his modest Venice Beach bungalow and plunge his head repeatedly into a toilet in an effort to wring information out of him. At one point, one of the two urinates on the Dude's thrown rug. Eventually, one thug figures out that the Dude is poor rather than wealthy. As it turns out, they targeted the wrong Lebowski but meant to confront Pasadena philanthropist Jeffrey Lebowski (David Huddleston of "McQ") whose young wife Bunny (Tara Reid) owes Treehorn a bundle of dough. The Dude is so upset by the act of aggression by Treehorn's thugs that he visits Lebowski and demands compensation for his rug. Although Lebowski refuses to compensate the Dude, the Dude steals a rug and falls under the scrutiny of Maude Lebowski (Julianne Moore of "The Forgotten")who was sentimentally attached to the rug. She explains that she controls all of the money and doles out amounts to Jeffrey. Anyway, Jeffrey hires the Dude to serve as a go-between the kidnappers and Lebowski. Walter tries to tell the Dude how to handle this sticky situation, but everything that Walter does leads to something infinitely worse. At mid-point, Walter is seen running around his ex-wife's Pomeranian. Some of the funniest scenes involve idiotic Walter taking a tire-iron to a sports car that he thinks a little boy owns and another has a trio of German nihilists visiting the Dude's apartment and dumping a marmot in his bathtub while he is bathing.
"The Big Lebowski" winds up being an oddball Raymond Chandler-esque mystery with the Dude acting as a gumshoe. As usual, the Coens present a gallery of weirdo characters. Maude ranks as a really warped character who describes her experimental art as 'vaginal.'Sam Elliott is very good as the narrator known only as 'The Stranger' who introduces us to the Dude during an evocative opening title sequence with the Sons of the Pioneers crooning in the background.