An absolute classic and one of the Coen’s brother’s quirkiest and most enjoyable films to date, and certainly one of the most perfect roles of Jeff Bridges career. I recently was looking for my DVD and it seemed to have disappeared, so I picked it up on HD DVD and damn does it look good. This is a must for any fan of the dude, you know who you are!!! Everything about this film just comes together and makes a perfect and quirky whole about possibly the most laid back man in the world becoming a bit of a shamus. A MUST SEE.

Jeff Bridges is The Dude whose given name is Jeffrey Lebowski. A pot smoking bowler, barely getting by in life. He spends his time bowling with his best friend the Vietnam scarred Walter Sobchak (John Goodman) and Donny Kerabatsos (Steve Buscemi) and trying to scrape up some money to pay the bills, but his life turns upside down when there is a case of mistaken identities by two thugs Woo (Philip Moon) and (Mark Pellegrino) who work for a Malibu based smutt king Jackie Treehorn (Ben Gazzara). The thugs are looking for the wife of Jeffrey Lebowski (David Huddleston) a wheelchair bound rich man with a young trophy wife Bunny (Tara Reid) who has debt all over town, and they destroy the Dude’s rug by peeing on it before they realize they must be in the wrong place. On Walter’s advice the Dude head’s to the Big Lebowski’s house to see about getting his rug paid for, where he meets Brandt (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Lebowski who kicks him out, but the Dude take a rug before he leaves. Once home, the Dude starts getting messages from Grant and also from Maude Lebowski (Julianne Moore). Brant and Lebowski hire the Dude to drop off 1 million dollars to the people who have kidnapped Bunny. The Dude accepts $20,000 to do the job, but Walter comes along and screws it up, so the girl is still gone, and then the Dude’s car with the money in it gets stolen.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

The Dude must deal with it from all sides, everyone looking for the money, from the kidnappers to the men of Bobby Treehorn, and the Dude tries to find out what he can, but things keep going wrong. Eventually the Dude finds out the truth though, that Bunny has run away to party, and is not kidnapped, and he was never given any money, the Big Lebowski stole it and kept it for himself so that he could have some more cash, since he had the appearance of cash, but in fact Maude had all the cash, though of course he can’t prove it. The kidnappers don’t know it though, and try to get the money, and are run off, but not before Donnie has a heart attack and dies. Walter and the Dude have Donny put in a folgers can and take him to the seashore to dump the ashes, though Water dumps them on the Dude by mistake. And the Dude goes on, a little more flush with money than before, and maybe a little more confident, and he will go on being the Dude.

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Such an amazingly enjoyable cult film, with amazing sequences like the dream sequences that the Dude has involving Maude, Saddam Hussein, and bowling. Such great visuals, and such an enjoyable film. Really worth seeing again, and again and again.