Take Five
By George Rose
July 28, 2009
"The Dude" Lebowski (Jeff Bridges) – oh yes, that's his name – is a hilarious deadbeat, an unemployed pacifist with a love for booze, pot and bowling. He is such a lazy, senseless guy that he goes grocery shopping in his pajamas and pays for his $0.69 drink by writing a check. The narrator mentions "a lot doesn't make sense about him," and while it couldn't be more true, it also couldn't be more entertaining. His bowling teammate Donny (Buscemi) and best friend Walter (John Goodman) are equally funny, especially Walter. He is a war veteran prone to outbreaks of rage and a tendency to screw up everything the laid back Dude barely manages to plan. The Dude probably wouldn't plan more than his bowling practice schedule if he weren't thrust into a kidnapping scandal after a few thugs accidentally stumble into his house and mistake him for the rich Big Lebowski.
If The Dude had overlooked one of the thugs peeing on his carpet, he might not have hunted down the Big Lebowski and found himself searching for his kidnapped wife, Bunny. Why anyone would care to rescue or pay more than $5 for Tara Reid is beside me, but the Coen brothers seem to enjoy stories of kidnapping and consider $1,000,000 to be the lucky ransom number. The movie is no Fargo, but luck has found these two again as the movie and characters are quite humorous.
The movie follows The Dude on his quest to recover the ransom money he was hired to deliver, and would have had Walter not stepped in and ruined things as usual. After a teenager steals The Dude's car and the briefcase containing the money, they start the race to find both the ransom and the woman. On their quest they encounter a slew of the Coen's most clever characters: the Big Lebowski's brown nosing assistant (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a pedophile bowling competitor named Jesus (John Turturro), the Big Lebowski's feminist painter of a daughter (Julianne Moore), a band of German nihilists (one of whom is Peter Stormare, another actor from Fargo), a nervous landlord with a love for dancing, and many more.
The cast is a top-notch crew, but some of the actors feel a bit out of place. I understand they would want to partake in a Coen brothers creation, especially after their Oscar win two years earlier with Fargo, but I think some of the characters would have benefitted from lesser known talent. Casting aside, the film was well paced and actually had me laughing out loud. It made me wish I had friends like The Dude and Walter. If their banter had made up the entirety of the nearly two hour film, I might have enjoyed it a bit more. Instead, it felt a bit long toward the end and might have benefited from being 15 minutes shorter. Not necessarily all of the last 15 minutes, but once you find out the plot twist regarding Bunny's kidnapping you sort of expect things to wrap up a bit more quickly. You might be saying the same thing about this review, so I'll offer my final thoughts: for no other reason than Jeff Bridges as The Dude and John Goodman as Walter should you see this film. I have a newfound appreciation for them as actors and would gladly accompany them on any life threatening adventure, even if it was as pointless as saving Tara Reid's life.
Overall Rating: B+
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