The term “film noir” usually produces thoughts of a private detective in a dark alley smoking a cigarette, wearing a trench coat and a fedora; however, in the case of the movie The Big Lebowski, the main character is a drunk, lazy bum in sandals at a bowling alley. Believe it or not, the Coen Brothers film falls into the genre of film noir as it takes all of the conventions of the genre and turns them upside down in a hilarious “whodunit” about Jeffery “the Dude” Lebowski who gets embroiled in a plot full of deceit, twists, turns and nihilists all in search of a new rug.
The Big Lebowski has many film noir themes, such as greed and deceit. In the beginning of the movie two thugs break into the Dude’s apartment and tell him that his wife owes money to someone named Jackie Treehorn. They have mistaken the unmarried Dude for another Jeffrey Lebowski who is a millionaire. When they realize this, the thugs urinate on the Dude’s rug. In an attempt to be compensated, the Dude finds the millionaire Lebowski and tells him the story. This Lebowski recruits the Dude to deliver the ransom to the nihilists who supposedly kidnapped his wife. He offers the Dude $20,000 to deliver the one-million dollar ransom to the Nihilists. When the millionaire Lebowski’s daughter, Maude Lebowski discovers that the Dude has not been successful in delivering the ransom, she offers him more money to return the ill-gotten money to her instead of carrying out her estranged father’s wishes. Eventually the Dude comes across Jackie Treehorn; the man to whom Lebowski’s wife owes the money. Treehorn offers Dude 10% of the ransom money to give the money to him instead. In the end the Dude finally discovers that there really is no money in the briefcase and that Lebowski’s wife was not even kidnapped. The Dude was merely tricked into delivering and losing an empty briefcase so that the