The Big Lebowski

Where Fargo was cool and wryly detached, the zany new film is aggressively antic - more like parts of their Barton Fink or The Hudsucker Proxy. On occasion, in fact, the Coens' anything-goes approach can begin to get on your nerves. [6 March 1998, p.17]

The great flaw in most of the Coens' work is, surprisingly, an inability to sustain a plot over a two-hour span. Read full review

This film feels completely haphazard, thrown together without much concern for organizing intelligence. Read full review

Frothing from two mouths, they parody film noir, megaviolent thrillers, sports allegories, ravaged-war-veteran movies, existentialist Westerns, even Busby Berkeley musicals. Read full review

An off-kilter thriller with a sad-sack hero. Read full review

They've never been farther into outer space than in The Big Lebowski. Fans (myself included) may cackle at absurd situations and in-jokes. But director Joel and producer Ethan, who write together, have never made so much clamorous ado about nothing. [6 March 1998, p.7E]

Unfortunately, The Big Lebowski doesn't hang together, and it's not supposed to: That's just the way the Coens want it. In some circles, this will be celebrated as the brothers' refusal to "sell out" after achieving Oscar glory. But anyone hoping for a real movie will see The Big Lebowski as nothing more than a pleasant waste of time. [6 March 1998, p.5G]

Although some of its parts are brilliantly executed and played by a terrific cast, the result is scattered, overamplified and unsatisfying. Read full review

It is a visual tour de force, but as a whole the movie slowly deflates into a cross between "Arizona" and "The Hudsucker Proxy". Read full review

The clever dialogue, seductive camera work, and beautiful production design (the lavish dream sequences look like Busby Berkeley on Ecstasy) almost make you forget the vacancy at the movie's core, but in the end there's no escaping the feeling that the Coens are speaking a secret language. Read full review

I laughed out loud a few times during The Big Lebowski, and Jeff Bridges, as always, is very good, but after I write this review, I'll probably never think about the movie again. And I spend way too much time thinking about movies. Read full review

It's a tired idea, and it produces an episodic, unstrung film. [6 March 1998, p.49]