The Big Lebowski: Critic Reviews

It's weirdly engaging, like its hero.

The Dude and Sobchak begin as caricatures too, but they're allowed to grow into something deeper, if only because the humanist economy of the Coens' surrealist vaudeville allows for a couple of human beings within the tapestry of freaks.

The result is a lot of laughs and a feeling of awe toward the craftsmanship involved. I doubt that there'll be anything else like it the rest of this year.

Adds up to considerably less than the sum of its often scintillating parts.

A typical Coen brothers film is like no film you've ever seen.

A genial spoof about life on the unhinged margins of L.A. that's a lot more carefully constructed than it pretends to be.

As tempting as it is to completely dismiss The Big Lebowski, it's hard to do because the Coens are able to create wickedly funny eccentrics and possess the ability to energize certain actors to inhabit them completely.

A wild ride for adults only.

To what do we owe the pleasure of the Coen Brothers' new joie de vivre and love for their fellow man?

Stylish and wickedly funny black comedy illuminated by a great performance from Jeff Bridges, and loaded with all the Coen brothers' trademark wit and flair.

As with Raising Arizona, The Big Lebowski gives us a protagonist whose dopey innocence seems to be his only protection from the real world.

If it's all supposed to be in fun, why does it feel so much like an insult?

Bridges does more with his deflated body language than many comedians can manage by chewing the furniture.

If nothing else, the Dude speaks for me when appraises the music of the Eagles.

Far from being shallow pastiche, it's actually about something: what it means to be a man, to be a friend, and to be a 'hero' for a particular time and place.

This deliberately messay comedy stars Jeff Bridges as a slack-brained pothead, but the funniest turn is given by John Turturro as a gay Latino bowler who urges his ball with sexy thrusts of his pelvis.

It's pretty much impossible not to love The Dude.

It's the actors that make this film: without the perfect casting ... and without their perfect comic timing, it wouldn't work. But it does work, every minute.

Joel and Ethan Cohen are in the midst of just such a golden streak right now.

After seeing and enjoying Lebowksi at least four times over the years, I can plainly see why the movie freaks have embraced this off-kilter comedy so enthusiastically.

In many ways, The Big Lebowski has surpassed Fargo as the Coens' high-water mark.

It's still one of the strangest movies of its generation. It's also one of the most oddly enjoyable, and though it isn't the Coen brothers' best work to date, it is their most original.

Jeff Bridges as The Dude is stroke of casting genius.

No, it's no Fargo. It's the most flamboyant, erratic, spontaneous movie the Coens have ever made.

... a loving study of Los Angeles loserdom.