Class Review

Rating: 9/10 (19 September 2015)

"The Big Lebowski" was a wonderful film about life's struggles through the eyes of a "cool" slacker. The plot steers us through a network of rich people problems to the harsh reality of life and death. Jeff Bridges plays the role of "The Dude" absolutely perfectly. The Dude gets entangled in a twisted kidnap/ransom plot that introduces a wide variety of personalities. Walter Sobchak (John Goodman) adds energy to the conflict with his crazy rash behavior. Walter's nutty actions help to reinforce The Dude as the position of reason. his's antics drive the ransom scenes and help insert excitement into a meaningless sequence. Walter and The Dude escalate the situation by not completely following the kidnapper's directions. The situation snowballs as the truth is slowly revealed. Donny (Steve Buscemi) does little to influence the plot and is included mainly as comic relief for the first part of the movie. His conversations seem distance and irrelevant, but in the end, his character helps to ground the story and remind of us what really matters in this world. Maude Lebowski (Julianne Moore) introduces herself to the situation and gives us some insight about the kidnapping. Maude is used in this film to convey information about her father, The Big Lebowski, played by David Huddleston. Although her role is very helpful, her demeanor and snooty personality distracts and pulls attention from the flow of the theme. As I watched this great film, I felt this sequence could have been routed a bit differently to help the plot instead of hinder it. The German's added a good amount of comic relief as their characters helped to tie the whole kidnapping ploy together. The Nihilist's added another dimension to this theme that was meant to make light of the whole abduction. This film has a lot in common with the movie "Raising Arizona". Both films revolve around attempts to extort the rich for money, while outlasting crazy and funny events. Both films become grounded in the end by life and death. The lighting in the ransom delivery sequence was extremely appropriate and seemed to mimic the typical suspenseful car ride. The music and even the color of Walter's glasses help to add to the adventurous feeling we were intended to experience in this scene. The shot angles during the bowling scenes definitely helped the music to calm our emotions from the conflicts of the kidnapping and peacefully install us back into the mind of The Dude. I absolutely loved this movie and would recommend it to anyone with an open mind. This crazy adventure has a little bit of everything exciting, sex drugs and rock and roll, but also remains grounded, expressing the trials of life and death.