Top class black comedy - the stuff cults are made of!

Rating: 7/10 (13 April 2004)

One Roger Lebowski is a slow-witted LA waster who spends most of his days in a drug induced haze and lives in a low rent apartment. Another is a rich businessman with a wayward trophy wife and who lives in a mansion. Witless debt collectors mistake one for the other and start a chain of funny, off-beat and intriguing events.
The Coen Brothers are simply not capable of making a bad movie, they couldn't do so even if they tried. They are masters of taking things just far enough to be strange and off-beat and yet not let it all fall apart completely. Something that David Lynch should learn from. Even if you are not taken by the plot they throw so many extras at you that you can just enjoy the productions for those alone.
This is something of crossbreed movie. Indeed it takes from Raymond Chandler to the Odd Couple stopping off at Pulp Fiction. Star turn is not Jeff Bridges (hippie Lebowski), but his bowling buddy John Goodman who puts in an amazing performance as a damaged and deranged Vietnam vet and some of his lines are laugh out loud funny - especially how he deals with a fellow bowler who has "stepped over the line." A little scene that stands up to the best of the funny business in Pulp Fiction.
Maybe if you want to be harsh they do turn this in to a bit of a variety show that goes from the bowling alley small-talk, to surreal dreams scenes, to the tale of a how a pair of dimwits try to dig themselves out of a hole. Four letter words come thick and fast and you wonder whether we really need them. This is - after all - a silly comedy. Why cut off part of the audience? Equally why is Roger (the dim one) only called The Dude throughout and never by his first name?
Good entertainment and sure to become a cult - if it is not already.