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The movie, which was written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, was a modest hit in theaters but initially left critics conflicted. Was it a western? A crime movie?
What was it, exactly?
“’The Big Lebowski,’ a pseudo-mystery thriller with a keen eye and ear for societal mores and modern figures of speech, nonetheless adds up to considerably less than the sum of its often scintillating parts, simply because the film doesn’t seem to be about anything other than its own cleverness,” Todd McCarthy wrote for Variety in 1998.
Roger Ebert gave the film three stars at the time of its release, calling it “a genial, shambling comedy about a human train wreck” and labeling the movie “weirdly engaging.” Ebert reviewed the film again in 2010 and added it to his “great movies list,” giving it four stars.
By then the film had found its following, with home video encouraging repeat viewings, drawing the movie’s quotability and spawning festivals and even a religion, called Dudeism.
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