Running time: 116 minutes
Starring: Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, Julianne Moore
Rating 7 out of 10
After Fargo became a sizeable financial success, many film-makers would have attempted to recreate that formula over again. Not the Coen brothers. For a pair whose guidelines have always been loose and innovative, this wild, Raymond Chandler style tale is true to form.Beardy low-life Jeff Lebowski (Jeff Bridges) - who calls himself The Dude - is cruising through a laid-back, unemployed existence, content to lend his ten-pin bowling expertise to skittle sidekicks Walter (John Goodman) and Donnie (Steve Buscemi).
But having been rudely shaken from his idyll by thugs mistaking for a namesake millionaire, the Dude inadvisably touts for compensation, and winds up in an escalating catalogue of kidnap, ransom and double cross.
Bridges is excellent, offering a perpetually bemused and roundly funny turn, and gets good support from Julianne Moore, regulars Peter Stormare, John Turturro and Buscemi, and a show-stealing Goodman.
It won't be to everyone's tastes - this is perhaps precisely what makes a Coen brothers movie so distinctive - but there are many left-of-centre laughs and a whole skewed sensibility to indulge in: compulsory viewing for fans, effective persuasion for the unconverted.
