The Big Lebowski

After Fargo, movie goers had high expectations for Joel and Ethan Coen's next film. In 1998, The Big Lebowski hits theaters across the nation. It did "okay" in the box office, but after it went on home video, it became an instant cult classic. The movie is a comedy but it's not "in your face funny" like Wedding Crashers and The 40 Year Old Virgin. Instead of using potty words, one liner puns, and obviously ridiculous jokes, the Coen brothers use a more subtle, situational based type of comedy. The main character of the movie, Jeff Lebowski (Jeff Bridges), is a pacifist, pot smoking, jobless, lazy bum who sits around all day and bowls. He goes by the name "The Dude", and still calls people 'man'. He has two other buds, Walter Sobchak (John Goodman) and Theodore Donald 'Donny' Kerabatsos (Steve Buscemi). Walter is an over aggressive Vietnam War veteran who is constantly making invalid connections between present life matters and Vietnam. Donny is a pretty awkward guy who never knows what's going on; the only thing he really cares about is bowling. The conversations and debacles these three guys get in through out the movie are classic. The story starts out with a bunch of thugs breaking into The Dude's house, mistakenly thinking he is another Lebowski who is a millionaire. To their disappointment, they realize they have the wrong guy so in frustration, one of the men urinate on The Dude's rug. The Dude, Walter, and Donny agree that the millionaire Lebowski owes The Dude a new rug. From there, things turn for the worse, and the Dude finds himself as the money carrier in a kidnapping case in which the victim is the millionaire Lebowski's foxy wife, Bunny (Tara Reid). The Dude is assisted by Walter who of course, manages to screw everything up. The measures and trials the Dude must endure in order to find out the real criminal behind the kidnapping make some of the funniest scenes I've ever seen in a movie. If you want a smart, clever comedy, and you're sick of the generic comedies today, check out the Big Lebowski.