The Bucket List

January 12, 2008

Rated: PG-13 Runtime: 101 min Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

The Bucket List is a buddy movie starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. The twist this time is they meet in the hospital where they are both being treated for cancer and find out they have only a few months left to live. The two create a “Bucket List”, which is a list of things you want to do before you “kick the bucket” and decide to go off and do all of them. Sounds like the type of movie you might watch if you’re in the mood for a good cry instead of a guy movie doesn’t it? Actually most of the tears will come from laughter.

Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman in The Bucket ListJack plays Edward Cole a self made billionaire. Cole has lots of ex-wives and employees, but not any real family to truly care for him. Even while in the hsopital battling for his life against cancer, his only visitor is his long time ever loyal personal assistance Matthew. Edward calls him Tommy instead and reminds him he can fire him anytime, which probably explains why he is not getting a lot of visitors.

His roommate in the hospital is Carter Chambers, played by Freeman. As you might guess, he’s much the opposite of Cole. He has a family who loves him and a wife of 45 years. But although he’s an extremely intelligent man who absolutely dominates Jeopardy, he has spent his life working as an auto mechanic. His wife got knocked up during his freshman year of college, and he dropped all of his life plans to support his family.

The two get to know each other and find out at about the same time their diagnosis calls for them to only live a few more months. The Bucket List is created. Now imagine the fun you could have with absolutely nothing to lose and a billionaires’ bank account at your disposal. Wanna see the Great Pyramids of Egypt? No problem, fire up the jet!

That’s the concept, but what really makes this movie work are the characters and two great actors to portray them. This is a perfect role for Jack at his current age. He makes a great grumpy geezer in the hospital. Their condition is handled very candidly with some admittedly dark humor. This is the type of thing director Robert Reiner, aka Meathead, has always been so good at, and Nicholson is the perfect guy to be able to get a laugh while his head is shoved in a toilet trying to puke up his little toe due to sickness from chemotherapy.

We went in expecting a movie tailored to an older adult audience and women with one of those bitter sweet tear jerker endings where everyone gets a good cry afterwards. I wont spoil the ending by commenting too much on that, but I’ll say there is so so much more to this movie. If you’re a fan of Jack, you’re going to love this movie. And there’s even a car chase of sorts thrown in with a couple of cars we really love. We give this one 4 stars, and it’s a great date movie as a bonus.

Posted by Billy Bob | Filed Under 4 Stars, Beverly Todd, Comedy, Drama, Jack Nicholson, Morgan Freeman, PG-13, Rob Morrow, Sean Hayes, Theatrical 

Seen it? How many stars do you give it?

1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (4 votes, average: 3.75 out of 5)
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2 Responses to “The Bucket List”

  1. The Bucket List : mediaforguys.com on January 12th, 2008 3:36 pm

    [...] Bob as added a review of The Bucket List over on the mothership. I have to say that I’m surprised with the 4 star rating, I expected 3 [...]

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