Can't abide the Dude,

Rating: 3/10 (27 January 2007)

I finally broke down and bought this movie because of all the glowing reviews I'd read here about it. Surely a movie so many people liked and waxed lyrical about would be worth owning. The first time I watched it, I got to the dude's second encounter with Maude and turned it off just annoyed by the film. I watched it again and made it through to the end a few days later.
I've only seen three Coen brother films, Raising Arizona (mostly hated it), Fargo (mostly loved it) and this one (still trying to decide). One thing you can say about the Coen brother's films is that they are complex. This one is somewhat of an homage to Raymond Chandler's LA based Philip Marlowe mysteries. I happen to love Raymand Chandler's works and consider him one of the most brilliant authors of the 20th century, so am somewhat disappointed by the Coen brother's thievery (their characterization, not mine) of his style.
The Dude, like Chandler's Marlowe get's caught up in a web of intrigue and runs around LA meeting mostly unsavory characters that you can't begin to like. Marlowe himself is somewhat unlikeable, but not as unlikeable as the Dude. At least Marlowe is working while the Dude is motivated by primarily his own greed, first in wanting to obtain a new carpet for free, and secondly by increasing offers of money from the other Lebowski and the other Lebowski's daughter Maude.
But if the Dude is unlikeable, most of the other characters are even less likable. John Goodman as Walter, is especially annoying, and most of his scenes are played out so over the top to be totally unbelievable. Most of the other reviewers talk about how "realistic" the conversations between Walter and the Dude are, yet gullibly laugh at Walter throwing himself out of a moving car with an Uzi wrapped in bubble wrap to go try to catch a kidnapper to beat the truth out of.
Donnie is probably the most likable of the three friends, or at least maybe you feel most sorry for, as he is continually told to shut up by Walter. At least Donnie gets one of the most memorable lines of the movie when the Dude and Walter are talking about something that Lenin said and Donnie interjects, "I am the Walrus?" Of course the Coen brothers for no discernible reason kill Donnie off at the end of the movie.
I don't know why the Coen brothers felt they needed Sam Elliot in this movie, but I liked it as a nice touch of surrealism. I didn't like the dream sequences very much, especially the second one. I also found the German nihilists very insultingly portrayed, kind of along the same lines as how the Germans in Hogans Heroes were portrayed. I'd expect better from the Coen's they are smarter than that.
The film wasn't totally worthless, I did laugh out loud at points (the In and Out Burger fixation was hilarious, as was the 2X4 nailed to the floor as a doorstop that the Dude later trips over, for a couple of examples), but there were as many things that I found just downright annoying about the film as well.
Far from a masterpiece, it's a badly flawed, albeit, amusing film.