Jeff Bridges is the Dude, a drop out looking for his virtue, and his rug, in the moral free-zone of contemporary Malibu. The Coens are consummate pastiche artists, and the framework here is taken wholesale from Raymond Chandler by way of Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye and Jeff Bridges’ early 80s noir, Cutter’s Way. But transposing the mechanics of the mystery thriller to the early 90s trips us into a stoner screwball misadventure, a recurring comic nightmare.
Staff Pick: Casey
The plot — thick as Kahlua — accommodates nihilist former krautrockers, fluxus artists, porn moguls, tearaway Minnesota farm girls, paraplegic fake millionaires, TV Western writers in iron lungs, neo-Jewish Vietnam vets, pedophile bowlers and Saddam Hussein… Key ingredients include the endlessly quotable dialogue, an inspired cast of actors clearly relishing their lines, and T Bone Burnett’s jukebox soundtrack.
Nick Bradshaw, The DVD Stack
Media Partner
Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Julianne Moore, Steve Buscemi, David Huddlestone, Philip Seymour Hoffman, John Turturro, David Thewlis, Ben Gazzara, Sam Elliott
USA
1998
English
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Credits
Screenwriter
Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Cinematography
Roger Deakins
Original Music
Carter Burwell
Production Design
Rick Heinrichs
Art Director
John Dexter
90s, Baby!
Ten years. 11 weeks. 90 films from the 1990s. This summer, 90’s Baby! takes a deep dive into a defining decade of cinema.