THE BIG LEBOWSKI (MPAA rating: R)
Directed by Joel Coen Written by Ethan & Joel Coen Starring Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Julianne Moore, Steve Buscemi
Reviewed by Bart
About six months ago, I was in the cinema watching the trailers for upcoming movies. There was the usual complement of five, and they had one thing in common -- they were all previewing remakes or sequels. There was not one original idea between them. Add to that the "reverse spin-off" movies from TV shows (I won't pass judgement on "Lost In Space" or "The X-Files" yet, but "Sanford and Son"? Puh-leeze!), the alarming number of cases of two movies being made from the same material (Steve Prefontaine, volcanoes, the Dalai Lama, earthbound comets) and Miramax's interest in resurrecting the "Rambo" franchise and you've got to wonder what things are going to be like in a few years' time. So it's in this atmosphere that it's good to see the refreshing and always-original Coen brothers follow up "Fargo", a movie about an unusual quasi-kidnapping, with "The Big Lebowski", a movie about...an unusual quasi-kidnapping.
OK, so the similarity may pretty much end with that sentence, but given that this is hardly a genre that's flooding the cineplexes, it's all a bit unnerving. So much so that "Fargo" was always in the back of my mind, which was a shame since "The Big Lebowski", while undoubtedly better than most current movies, compares unfavourably to that earlier picture.
Jeff Bridges plays Jeff Lebowski, known as "Dude", a pot-smoking neo-hippie who returns from a bowling game with his friends Walter (John Goodman, who spends the entire movie shouting) and Donny (Steve Buscemi, in a ridiculously small role) to find two goons in his apartment demanding payment for debts run up by his wife. The goons are actually looking for another Jeff Lebowski (the "big" one of the title, played by David Huddleston), but being typical goons, they fail to realize that the Dude's abode is far removed from the opulence of their millionaire targets, and by the time they realize this one of them has already urinated on the Dude's rug. Walter persuades the Dude to try to get some compensation from the Big Lebowski and it is this meeting which causes the Dude to be brought in as a courier when the richer Lebowski's young wife disappears and a ransom note is received. Things of course do not run smoothly and typical Coen brothers mayhem ensues.
So, what's wrong with this picture? Well, while the collection of subplots and dream sequences usually succeed by themselves, as a whole they lack cohesion and the movie feels disjointed. Earlier Coen brothers movies got their delightfully surreal nature predominantly from the premise, but in "The Big Lebowski" it is the characters who provide the surreality via a collection of unusual traits, and this melting pot of bizarreness fails to produce the overall feel possessed by their previous movies. The movie does have some great scenes, however, especially those featuring John Turturro as a bowler on a rival team, and invites frequent laughter, but ultimately it's not up to the consistent standards of the Coens. That doesn't mean it's a bad movie, since these standards are high, but it will be a disappointment to many fans of Joel and Ethan's work.
Also look out for the brief screen debut of singer/songwriter Aimee Mann as the girlfriend of one of the three German nihilists, and the motion sickness-inducing camera shot looking out through the fingerholes of a bowling ball during one of the dream sequences.
Bart's grade: B
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Bart |\/\/\/|
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