A dude's dude movie. Nearly a perfect comedy. The Dude abides

Rating: 9/10 (15 June 2013)

I love this movie so much. Anybody who doesn't like it, must be name Donny. Why? Because he must be out of his element. So shut up, Donny. It felt like a live, free-flowing work of comedy, action, and mystery. The Big Lebowski is an American classic that defied initial critical and box office failure to become a treasure of a film. This is one of the Coen's brothers most cleverly devised and executed stories. The plot surrounds the story about 'the laziest man in Los Angeles County' unemployed loser Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski (Jeff Bridges) who get mistaken for philanthropic millionaire Jeffrey Lebowski (David Huddleston) by henchman hired by pornographer gangster Jackie Treehorn (Ben Gazzara). The Dude is a fairly good character, with White Russia in hand every time. You will hear that name a lot, about 161 times in the movie. They rough him up, and urine on his rug before last threaten to kill the millionaire's sexy young wife Bunny (Tara Reid) who the Dude has no clue of. With his bowling buddies, security-store owner and suppose Vietnam Vet Walter Sobchak (John Goodman) and mild-mannered ex-surfer Donny (Steve Buscemi) take a Raymond Chandler like journey into the world of crime, violence, sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll to find another rug. This movie has a world of its own, there is nothing I can think of comparing it to and it was a great experience and I still enjoy watching it. Donnie, Walter and The Dude were made for Buscemi, Goodman and Bridges. The supporting cast is great as well. I like Julianne Moore as Maude Lebowski, Philip Seymour Hoffman as Brandt, Peter Stormare as Karl Hungus and last John Turturro as Jesus. They all had memorable scenes and many unforgettable quotes. The character Jesus' potential was totally wasted in my opinion as he didn't serve anything to the plot. Lots of profanity-laced, repetitive tirades masquerading as hilarious dialogue that was a hit or a miss for some viewers. I got the humor, but for some people, they might see this as dumb. The editing needs some work as there is a lot of continuity problems, some crew visible, and a few audio/visual unsynchronized. Talking about audio. There's a soundtrack worth checking out. I love the Spanish flamenco version of The Eagles's Hotel California. It was awesome. Another song worth checking is Just Dropped In by Kenny Rodgers drifts through an elaborate bowling fantasy sequence titled Gutterballs. Nearly all of the visible symbols in The Dude's second dream sequence are taken from earlier scenes. While it's pretty good scene, it was kinda out of place. It was pretty pointless. Was I the only one totally lost when this scene played the first time watching it? There's something incredibly philosophical about the appearances of Saddam Hussein and the Gulf War in this movie. They're like an antithesis to the Dude. While the dude signifies the spirit of peace and and calm in the movie, Saddam symbolizes violence and war by being one of the greatest villains of the second half of the 20th century. The movie is often use for use as social and political analysis of many topics such as carnivalesque of modern society, commodity fetishism, neoconservatism etc. etc. In my opinion, while it does talk about major topic, it never does finish or make sense in the end of the film. There isn't a complex climax to the film. Sam Elliot appears at the conclusion to spout some bewildering nonsense that's meant to tack an explanation onto the end. Deep, I guess. So that might disappoint some people. What is it all really about? Who knows, let's just go bowling. Time heals all critical misconceptions, I guess as the movie fail when it came out, but grew into a cult following. This movie is like a good rug. Really tied the room together when looking at it.