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 doesn'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 doesn'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 doesn'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 won'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 doesn'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 can'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 wasn'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 . )
