Jeffrey 'The Dude' Lebowski, a Los Angeles slacker who only wants to bowl and drink White Russians, is mistaken for another Jeffrey Lebowski, a wheelchair-bound millionaire, and finds himself dragged into a strange series of events involving nihilists, adult film producers, ferrets, errant toes, and large sums of money.
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.
– Kenneth Turan,
Los Angeles Times,
14 Feb 2001
fresh:
A typical Coen brothers film is like no film you've ever seen.
– Rick Groen,
Globe and Mail,
25 Apr 2003
fresh:
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.
– Geoff Andrew,
Time Out,
24 Jun 2006
fresh:
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.
– Andrew Sarris,
New York Observer,
27 Apr 2007
rotten:
Adds up to considerably less than the sum of its often scintillating parts.