They skewered rednecks in Raising Arizona, took on big business in The Hudsucker Proxy and made a laughing stock of northerners in Fargo. Now the director/producer team of Joel and Ethan Coen (they write their scripts together) have struck again. In The Big Lebowski, the Coen brothers have set their sites on one of America's easiest targets: Los Angeles. And in the Coens' book, anything and everything is fair game for their wicked sense of humor.

Fans will immediately notice that the Coens are back to their old tricks. Without the creative constraints posed by the based-on-a-true-story gimmick of Fargo, the brothers return to the no-holds-barred style of Raising Arizona. Sure it's ribald fun, but there's only so much over-the-top satire an audience can handle in two hours. Jam-packed with mockery and caricature, The Big Lebowski thumbs its nose at everything from planned parenthood to funeral parlors.

But it's the sport of bowling that gets hit the hardest here. Our hero is a good-for-nothing who calls himself "The Dude" (Jeff Bridges). Unemployed and worthy of the title "laziest man in Los Angeles County," The Dude splits his time drinking White Russians, smoking ganja and bowling. Walter (John Goodman), a belligerent Vietnam vet and converted Jew, and Donny (Steve Buscemi), a wimpy nincompoop, round out The Dude's bowling team.

Even with life and limb at stake (as the movie gets more complicated), The Dude obediently returns to the bowling alley. To spice things up, the Coens sketch one of their most colorful characters ever as The Dude's competition on the lanes. Unnaturally comfortable in a hairnet and tight purple bowling suit, Jesus (John Turturro), a convicted pederast, derives an unnatural sexual thrill from bowling. Keep your eyes open for Jimmie Dale Gilmore as one of Jesus's teammates, who refuses to mark a penalty until Walter jams a gun in his face.

Though bowling is good for quite a few laughs, it has little to do with the movie's plot. The Dude's real name happens to be Jeff Lebowski, which is where the real trouble starts. Somewhere, unbeknownst to The Dude, a completely unrelated bimbo named Bunny Lebowski (Tara Reid) is running up a hefty expense bill. Unfortunately for The Dude, Bunny's loan sharks come beating down the wrong door and peeing on the wrong rug with the intention of collecting their dough. In hopes of sorting everything out (or at least getting his rug replaced), The Dude tracks down the Jeff Lebowski the hoodlums wanted: "the Big Lebowski" (David Huddleston).

Before long, The Dude has positioned himself directly in the center of an unpredictable roller-coaster of events. First, Bunny disappears and The Dude finds himself acting as the bag man for her million-dollar ransom on the Big Lebowski's behalf. Enter Maude Lebowski (Julianne Moore), an unconventional artist who takes feminism to a new extreme. She disapproves of her father's agreement to pay off the kidnappers, offering to compensate The Dude if he doesn't deliver the money.

As if things aren't bad enough, The Dude botches the pay-off, loses the money, and finds himself on several more black lists. Rich porn mogul Jackie Treehorn (Ben Gazzara) sends his goons out to round up The Dude, while a group of German punk-rock nihilists (Peter Stormare, Flea) threaten castration if the money doesn't turn up.

Whew! Even with all that said, I've only given the bare minimum needed to frame the story. Though complicated, the plot here is really pretty thin, a series of coincidences that blow the shaky premise out of proportion. The story itself is riddled with glaring problems bound to perplex anyone trying to sort out the film's ridiculous "mystery."

But if you can distance yourself from the big picture and focus on the moment-by-moment comedy, The Big Lebowski will keep you entertained from beginning to end. Audience manipulation is commonplace in horror movies or thrillers, but is rarely practiced with skill in comedy. But the Coen brothers are an exception. Just as they control the characters on screen, they string us along, anticipating every reaction. They have a knack for letting us laugh at ourselves without realizing the joke's on us.

The Coens' secret to building strong supporting characters seems to be sketching types of people no one had ever thought to stereotype before. But in The Big Lebowski, their main players are disappointingly dull. Ironically, Bridges fills the role of the hapless buffoon with gusto, making the severely under-motivated protagonist overly energetic. The Dude is supposed to be dense and predictable, but Bridges's enthusiasm with the role makes him even more frustrating than intended.

If such a notion is conceivable, the Coen brothers actually outdo themselves stylistically. They enhance the film with nice touches, like using a narrator who disapproves of the amount of cursing in the movie. But they never stick to one technique for very long, failing as often as they succeed. While the plot erratically searches out its unpredictable course, clunky fantasy sequences derail any direction the story manages to find.

Despite its faults, The Big Lebowski is an outrageous blast. The Coens stubbornly keep the laughs coming even in the most unlikely spots. But they best show their wit with subtle observations about the little mysteries of life: why do people write checks for less than a dollar? or why are there handicapped parking places at bowling alleys?

The Coens are back where they were before Fargo, making the best second-rate stuff around. It may be a step backwards, but the more mainstream zaniness of The Big Lebowski is likely to reach a larger audience, winning the Coen brothers many more fans.