Works are divided into those that are devoted to a certain story, concept, and those that are entirely built around the character. This film is certainly a circus of Lebovsky himself, there are almost no scenes without his face in the frame, all the events occur only around him and for him, so the authors sell us not a story, but only the charisma of Jeff Bridges. I have always been against such films and stories and consider them fair trickery, they do not contain the content of the work as such, but a bright hero is allowed to dust in our eyes, creating the impression that you as a viewer got something. The plot here is only for a tick, and it could easily be about something else. The events that take place are based on the degree to which the characters behave irresponsibly – here everyone is a complete burdock and manages to spoil elementary things. Is that funny what's supposed to be? I was annoyed by that.
In addition, some points raise questions. So, the big boss didn't own the money himself, it belonged to the state fund, and he decided to embezzle a million by pretending to give it for ransom. But wait a minute, for such purposes, he had no right to withdraw money and will have to be responsible for them in the same way. And since that million wasn't in the suitcase anyway, why would you keep freaking out about Dude? His version he had already played, then you could just tell fairy tales about where the million went. He hurt himself by doing too much. His plan didn’t work at all, as Bunny came back alive and well, and he had no reason to think he wouldn’t.
The famous porn actor also acted strangely: he needed to find out where the money was, they answered him, and he did not even undertake to check the version. He didn't really want them.
The subject of the Germans is incomprehensible. Where did they come from, where did they learn about the brew, from which they decided that a million would be given to them without checking.
In general, this story doesn't work if you just turn on the brain. Fortunately, this time the authors seem to have understood this. Again, they didn’t set out to create a connected story, they wanted a circus of one character whose story “is sometimes sculpted and sometimes ridiculous.”
I don’t give a negative assessment just for the fact that the actors play well, the camera work is good, the film has a good old film charm. Well shot psychedelic scenes about how the hero falls into the fantasy world when he gets hit on the head or is under substances. The average score is simply for what is beautifully done. But everything I've seen isn't close.
And a little bit about film theory. There is a video that the local characters consider themselves heroes of different films. The guy sees himself as a hero of a personal story, his friend is a hero of a drama, the Germans – a Tarantine movie, etc., and only Donnie is a normal living person who did not get a role. In fact, the theory is far-fetched and built only on interpretations, I never saw a single real clue in the film that would accurately paint such a concept. It's just that the film is a deconstruction of a crime comedy, and it's filled with charismatic crazy characters. It’s perfectly normal when a work has colorful characters and they have their own arches. With the same success, the theory of characters from different films could be wrapped up, for example, about the Guardians or Cobra Throw, in which each character has its own tone of storytelling. So no, the theory is wrong.