The Big Lebowski is reminiscent of the Coen brothers’ earlier Raising Arizona, but is not nearly as endearing. It’s about an unemployed lowlife whose real name is Jeff Lebowski (Jeff Bridges), but calls himself The Dude. The Dude is goodhearted generally, but does nothing but go bowling and “is in the running for the laziest man on earth.”

Things get interesting for The Dude when some men he doesn’t know come into his house and pee on his rug. The rest of the film takes us along with The Dude in his quest to replace his rug. What follows is a story that is much to complex and way too strange to explain coherently. The Dude takes on this quest joined by his bowling buddies Walter (John Goodman) and Donny (Steve Buscemi). These guys find themselves having to deal with a mean, rich Jeff Lebowski (David Huddleston) with his assistant, Brandt (Phillip Seymore Hoffman) and young wife, Bunny (Tara Reid), three nihilists led by Uli Kunkel (Peter Stormare), an eccentric painter (Julianne Moore), a band of thugs, a porn king, a fifteen year old kid, and a bowling opponent named Jesus (John Turturro).

The story is as strange as it sounds and even stranger with the addition of random psychedelic scenes as The Dude is wigging out. The Coen brothers’ strange humor does provide a number of funny scenes and even a few very funny scenes. John Goodman is frequently humorous as a Vietnam vet who’s still obsessed with the war. Once after he and The Dude are asked to leave a restaurant for rude behavior, he responds by informing the waitress that he has “buddies who died face down in the muck, so you and I could enjoy this family restaurant.”

The mysterious cowboy, who narrates the film near the end, suggests that The Dude is a Christ figure by “taking her easy for all us sinners.” But it never really makes sense. It’s true that The Dude puts up with a lot of crap that isn’t his fault, but he never shows any real Christ-like attributes or any willingness to play the sacrificial role. Unless there’s something I’m missing, it just doesn’t work.

That’s about what I could say about the film in general. All of it strangeness just doesn’t add up and the text, through interesting at times, doesn’t come together. Maybe there’s something that I’m not seeing, but all I am seeing is a bunch of strange scenes that are thrown together for some laughs.