The Dude

The Coen brothers have fertile imaginations. You would certainly need such fertility to make a movie like "The Big Lebowski". Then again, these are the same guys who wrote "Raising Arizona", a cult favorite from 1987 that solidified both Holly Hunter's and Nicholas Cage's respective careers. And even if the stories of these two pictures are quite different, they share an uncanny similarity in terms of the quality and quantity of humor.

"The Big Lebowski", much like "Raising Arizona", does a similar favor for another actor's career. In this case, it is Jeff Bridges, who ordinarily plays intense, dramatic roles. As Lebowski, he plays a deadbeat nobody who gets caught up in a rather improbable kidnapping scheme that was never meant to reach him, throwing "The Dude" (a self-appointed name for Bridges' character) into a wild and hilarious goose-chase. It turns out that (and this was unexpected, I must say) Bridges is simply unforgettable as Lebowski, taking "deadbeatness" to a whole new level and proving that he can indeed play all kinds of roles, dramatic and comedic. Makes us wonder why it is that Jeff Bridges has never played such a character, for he is a perfect choice.

Beside him are other talented, established actors - John Goodman, Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Steve Buscemi and John Turturro, just to name the first and more widely known batch - who also play fantastically funny and rich characters without whom the story would be positively inexistent. Indeed, the supporting cast is fundamental in eliciting the wit of the story, as well as Lebowski's ludicrous behavior.

But it is Bridges that sweeps the movie, drawing almost rib-cracking laughing attacks with his lackadaisical antics in face of the absurdity of the events that unfold in front of him.

It's a shame that "The Big Lebowski" did not get the attention it deserved. It was thrown aside by the ever-present and ill-humored critics as a movie to chuckle to but not to admire. Their loss...

The public, however, has done the production justice by placing it right alongside "Raising Arizona" in the CULT FAVES shelf.