the relaxed dude rides a roller coaster the big lebowski a film review by michael redman copyright 1998 by michael redman the most surreal situations are ordinary everyday life as viewed by an outsider .
when those observers are joel and ethan coen , the surreal becomes bizarre .
when the life is that of jeff " the dude " leboswki , the bizarre falls over the edge into the world of " what'sgoingonaroundhere " .
the marvelous sound of " the stranger " ( sam elliot ) 's
voice - over introduces the film .
at least it does until he forgets what he was going to say and gives up .
the dude ( jeff bridges ) is described as the " laziest man in los angeles , possibly the world " , although he 's not so much slothful as he is relaxed .
spending the last 30 years with a roach clip in one hand and a white russian in the other , he does n't have much of a life , but he 's having a good time .
when asked what he does for fun , he responds " bowl , drive around and the occasional acid flashback " .
lebowski 's passion is bowling .
when he 's not rolling the ball down an alley towards a strike , things just happen to him .
arriving home one night , he 's beaten by thugs attempting to collect money that his wife owes them .
even worse , they urinate on his rug .
the problem is that the dude does n't have a wife .
his assailants realize that their target is a different lebowski when they glance around at his apartment .
the " big " lebowski ( david huddleston ) is a multi - millionaire and his dudeness lives in two - room squalor .
the next day , our ragtag hero visits his namesake 's mansion attempting compensation for his soaked rug .
the carpet is important to him because it pulls the room together : not surprisingly since it 's virtually the only object there .
when he 's denied any money , he picks up a replacement rug off the floor .
on his way out , he runs into lebowski 's trophy
babe wife bunny
( tara reid ) who offers to perform a sexual act that , according to rumor , is one of bill clinton 's favorites for a thousand bucks .
the penniless dude wisecracks that he 's heading for the cash machine .
later he gets an unexpected phone call enlisting his aid in being the bag man to deliver a ransom to bunny 's kidnappers .
this begins the trademarked coen brothers crimes - gone - wrong sequences .
the kidnappers are impossibly inept .
the dude and his cronies are even worse .
every plan goes awry .
you can almost see lebowski 's brain churning in slow motion as he tries to figure out the clues .
that 's the story , but to tell the truth it does n't much matter .
there could be almost any plot and the film would be just as entertaining .
the narrative only exists so we can watch the offbeat characters and the quirky predicaments they fall into .
the dude 's bowling buddies walter ( john goodman ) and donny ( steve buscemi ) look like people you 'd see on the street but , like everything else in this film , they 're not quite what they seem .
walter is a vet as stuck in vietnam as the dude is in the sixties .
everything that happens reminds him of a situation in the nam .
when a fellow bowler crosses the foul line but wo n't admit it , walter pulls a gun on him until he marks a zero on the score sheet .
donny gets precious few words in between walter 's screaming and the dude 's rambling .
when he does , walter shouts him down with horrendous albeit seemingly unintentional bowling puns .
donny is " out of his league " and does n't " have a frame of reference " .
the film is peppered with people for whom the term " character " would be an understatement .
the big lebowski 's daughter maude , an avant - garde " vaginal " artist , paints while swinging naked in a leather apparatus like an s&m mary martin .
the kidnappers are german techno nihilist bikers .
bunny lebowski is a high school cheerleader turned porno star .
most impressive is john turturro in his far too small role as a hispanic bowler .
as the flamenco music swells , we see him putting on his lavender hose .
the camera pans up to an all - purple skin - tight bowling outfit with " jesus " ( pronounced with a " j " , not an " h " ) embroidered on the pocket .
he addresses the lane with intense seriousness and one painted fingernail .
his tongue slowly snakes out and lovingly licks the glowing bowling ball .
bridges works the dude as if he had been living him for decades and maybe he has .
i ca n't think of anyone else who could have done a better job .
buscemi has a limited role , but he plays it perfectly .
the more that i see john goodman the more convinced i am that he 's one of the treasures of our time .
it 's odd to think that most of the world knows him only as roseanne barr 's television husband .
more like the coen 's " raising arizona " than their hit " fargo " , " the big lebowski " demands an open mind and even more open eyes .
a mark of the coen brothers is that even with all wonderful dream sequences and the broad slapstick physical comedy on the screen , much of the humor is subtle and easy to miss .
there 's so much going on that
frequently it disappears before you can see it . walking out of the theater
, i felt that the film had something important to say .
on further examination , i was n't sure exactly what it was .
"
if you meet jesus at the bowling alley , it 's not going to be what you expect " ?
"
when the going gets weird , the weird go bowling " ?
maybe there 's no real message .
perhaps it 's just a roller coaster ride through a hilarious world .
maybe that 's enough .
( michael redman has written this column for 23 years and just realized that he was so taken with the dude that he ran out of space to talk about " the man in the iron mask " starring that favorite of 14-year - old girls of all ages .
redman@bvoice .
com is the eaddress for estuff . )
Output: P