Review of The Big Lebowski (1998) by Moviemew _ — 04 Mar 2018

"The Big Lebowski" - a renowned stoner film, as well as a much-celebrated cult favourite, Now for the million-dollar question: is it worth its status?

To get the visual aspect out of the way: there really is nothing to write home about here. Sure, there are some nice shots here and there, but apart from a few nice locations and the occasional trippy special effect montage, scenes are ... generic.

The story in "The Big Lebowski" is fairly unique, albeit for its significant unimportance (as said by the writers themselves). Summarised: A mundane, hippyish stoner dude, Jeff Lebowski (more often going by the nickname of "The Dude") is mistaken by a bunch of German mobsters for a rich and famous Korean-war veteran with the same exact name. They break into The Dude's home, assault him, and pee on his rug. Thus, The Dude's quest becomes to find a similar rug, because "that rug really tied to room together", as he frequently states. In the process, he gets involved in a (plausibly staged) kidnapping - which is never actually resolved during the movie - and comes into contact with various weird characters, all whilst being accompanied by his evenly weird friend Walter: a numbskull, bowling Vietnam-war veteran.

As a viewer, I had no idea what anything in the movie would lead up to. One could say a bit of obscurity is a good thing, but having NO direction takes away from overall experience. As such, all characters stay frustratingly flat the entire time.

Weirdly enough, the unimportance of "The Big Lebowski"'s story is what makes it relatively enjoyable; clearly, the only focal point is that The Dude doesn't care, which is most probably why the film is so popular. The only realisation a new audience has to make, is that it doesn't have to expect the movie to go anywhere, just like "The Big Lebowski" doesn't pretend to be a film to expect anything from.