Movie Review The Bucket List

The Bucket List (2007)

Directed by Rob Reiner 

Written by Justin Zackham

Starring Jack Nicholson, Morgan Freeman, Sean Hayes, Rob Morrow 

Release Date December 25th, 2007

Published December 24th, 2007

"Dying is easy, Comedy is hard" the alleged dying words of British actor Sir Donald Wolfitt are somewhat ironic when related to the new to DVD movie, The Bucket List. Directed by Rob Reiner, The Bucket List is a comedy about dying. It's also a comedy that proves just how hard comedy is as a pair of old pros, Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, fail to get hardly any laughs at all in this desperate comedy.

Jack Nicholson is Edward Cole and Morgan Freeman is Carter Chambers. Aside from age, Edward and Carter have nothing in common except that they are both dying from cancer. After digging through the perfunctory getting to know you scenes, Edward, a millionaire who actually owns the hospital the two men are in, and Carter, a middle class mechanic, bond and decide not to spend their last days in bed.

Together they will blow off their families and friends in favor of a round the world jaunt that will help each accomplish all of the things on their 'bucket list', the list of things they wished to do before they 'kicked the bucket'. For Carter just leaving the country is one thing, Edward on the other hand wants to climb Kilimanjaro.

So what about their families? Edward is a loner who hasn't seen his only daughter in over a decade (no points for guessing that we will meet the daughter before the film ends). Carter's wife, played by Beverly Todd, is rightfully indignant until Carter plays the 'I'm dying, I'll do what I want' card.' It's a jerk thing to do to the person you supposedly love, leaving them right before you actually die to travel around the world with a virtual stranger, but nothing about these characters is all that likable anyway. 

The around the world journey is filled with charm even as it is slightly offensive in nature. Really, how many people really dying of cancer could just pick up and go around the world? Granted, movies are all about wish fulfillment, but there is something unseemly about the carefree attitude of The Bucket List in relation to cancer and the honest suffering of so many real people.

That aside, from a strictly filmmaking standpoint The Bucket List is a mixed bag. There are laughs, mostly from the two stars bantering off of one another, but The Bucket List is arguably the laziest movie Rob Reiner has ever made. The film moves from one expected scene to the next with little more than the charm of Nicholson and the sturdy presence of Freeman to carry us past the predictability.

Eventually, even these two awesome talents can't prevent us from getting bored with the progression from one expected scene to the next. There is an inevitability to the story, of course it's about two guys dying of cancer, but Reiner makes little attempt to mix up the journey with something we don't expect or that he doesn't tip his hand to several scenes ahead of time.

The dull predictability combined with the overall morbidity of the central story can't entirely dim the charm of these two stars but not even the talents of Freeman and Nicholson can overcome the rote anticipation of The Bucket List.