Dom Robinson reviews
The Big Lebowski Distributed by
Polygram
Cat.no: 055 070 2
Cert: 18
Running time: 112 minutes
Year: 1997
Pressing: 1999
Region(s): 2, 4 (UK PAL)
Chapters: 22 plus extras
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
Languages: English, French
Subtitles: English, French, Dutch
Widescreen: 1.85:1; Fullscreen: 4:3
16:9-enhanced: Yes
Macrovision: Yes
Disc Format: DVD 9
Price: £17.99
Extras : Scene index, Booklet
Director:
(Barton Fink, Blood Simple, Fargo, Hudsucker Proxy, Miller's Crossing )
Producer:
Screenplay:
Music:
Cast:
The Dude: Jeff Bridges (Against All Odds, American Heart, Blown Away, The Fabulous Baker Boys, The Fisher King, The Last Picture Show, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, The Vanishing (1993) )
Walter Sobchak: John Goodman (The Babe, Barton Fink, The Borrowers, The Flinstones, King Ralph, Matinee, Raising Arizona, True Stories )
Maude Lebowski: Julianne Moore (An Ideal Husband, Boogie Nights, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Psycho (1998), Short Cuts, Vanya on 42nd Street )
Donny: Steve Buscemi (Airheads, Con Air, Desperado, Escape From L.A., Fargo, In The Soup, Kansas City, Living In Oblivion, Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, Things To Do In Denver..., Trees Lounge )
The Big Lebowski: David Huddleston (Blazing Saddles, The Greatest )
Uli: Peter Stormare (Armageddon, Fargo )
Jesus Quintana: John Tuturro (Barton Fink, Being Human, Brain Donors, Clockers, Fearless, Girl 6, Mac, Miller's Crossing, Quiz Show, State of Grace )
Jackie Treehorn: Ben Gazzara (The Bridge At Remagen, The Killing Of a Chinese Bookie, Road House, The Spanish Prisoner )
Knox Harrington: David Thewlis (Black Beauty, Dragonheart, The Island of Dr Moreau, Life Is Sweet, Naked, Seven Years In Tibet, TV: "Prime Suspect 3" )
The Stranger: Sam Elliott (Fatal Beauty, Gettysburg, Mask, Road House, Sibling Rivalry, Tombstone )
The Big Lebowski Jeff Bridges plays Jeff Lebowski, aka The Dude -
his bowling handle, an unemployed bum with no prospects and zero future. His
pin pals are Walter Sobchak (John Goodman ), a Vietnam veteran, still
bordering on the obsessive side with his behaviour, which is perfectly
demonstrated early on when he thinks a rival bowler has walked across the foul
line resulting in him brandish his pistol and the police being called; and
Donny (the excellent Steve Buscemi ), the more care-free and laid-back
member of the trio who seems to have little to do throughout most of the film
other than to offer his observations on life and the situations they place
themselves in, only to be told to shut up by Walter.
The Dude's home life isn't the most extravagant. A small, smelly flat with few
personal belongings of worth is all he has, but this is about to be reduced
when two men arrive to smash the place up and pee all over his rug, on the
orders of their boss Jackie Treehorn, demanding back the large amount of money
that his girlfriend spent... Now hang on. Girlfriend? Money? Those are two things that The
Dude does not possess and he eventually traces the real Big Lebowski who they
are trying to contact in an attempt to resolve the situation.
In addition to the main characters are Julianne Moore as the Big
Lebowski's daughter Maude, who takes pity on Jeff's situation, John Tuturro
as manic, rival bowler Jesus Quintana, Ben Gazzara as Jackie Treehorn,
David Thewlis as Maude's doctor, Knox Harrington, the Coen Brothers'
favourite Peter Stormare as one of three extreme nihilists who only
serve to make life hell for The Dude and Sam Elliott as narrator of
the piece, The Stranger, with two cameos to his credit.
There is a serious problem with the picture on this release, in that in some
scenes there are obvious artifacts on view in the form of glitches onscreen,
the first occurrence coming in the opening scene with Jeff Bridges in a
supermarket. It happens where stationary pixels onscreen are next to moving
ones - the method used for compressing the data on DVDs - but it doesn't work
quite well here and when there's a slow pan the effect is obvious.
The average bitrate is a so-so 4.32Mb/s and the disc is 16:9-enhanced for
widescreen televisions. The widescreen version is framed in the original aspect
ratio of 1.85:1 while a fullscreen option is also available for those with
horizontally-challenged televisions.
The sound is a lot better though. Dolby Digital 5.1 in two languages which does
great justice to everything that passes through your speakers including songs
such as the Gipsy Kings' cover version of The Eagles' "Hotel California"
and an original Kenny Rogers with "Just Dropped In To See What Condition
My Condition Was In" .
Extras :
Chapters :
Booklet :
Languages & Subtitles :
An English and French language soundtrack are both available in Dolby Digital
5.1 plus subtitles for the same, with an extra subtitled language in Dutch.
The subtitles cover all the dialogue, but none of the songs heard.
Menu :
The menu is rather bland as the options barely go beyond choosing screen format,
menu languages and scene selection. There's no extras to select onscreen as
any biogs are in the booklet.
Another thing to note is that on playing the disc you can't skip past the
copyright info. Selecting "Play Movie" brings up the Polygram logo.
Overall, this is a very watchable and engaging film for the two hours you'll
spend watching it, but whether you'll go back for more is another matter as
it's not a film that cries out to be seen time and time again. For me, Coen
Brothers films tend to be hit-or-miss usually, but this one falls inbetween.
The hallucinating sequences for Jeff Bridges are brilliant but the rest less
so. Goodman goes nicely over the top when required, but Buscemi doesn't get
nearly enough to do, so if I had to watch one of their films again I'd still
choose Fargo or Barton Fink .
What's most notable about this release is that, to my knowledge, it's the first
ever single-sided dual-layer DVD released in the UK with both picture formats
on the ** same side of the disc** . Usually, releases containing
both versions will be on opposite sides of the disc but this breaks the trend.
It's a more welcome move, but on a technical note, I'd rather the fullscreen
version be scrapped altogether if it means the widescreen version remaining
can benefit from higher bitrate, resulting in a better picture.
Also, Polygram have missed the boat in giving this ground-breaking moment some
decent extras whereas the Region 1 (USA) disc includes a 30-minute interview
with the Coen brothers about the making of the film. It's similarly galling to
note that the PAL VHS widescreen release also includes a 'making of' which may
be this one, but it's nowhere to be seen on the UK DVD release.
FILM : ***
PICTURE QUALITY : ***
SOUND QUALITY : *****
EXTRAS : *
-------------------------------
OVERALL : ***
Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1999.
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