It’s true that certain actors could read the phone book and you’d be entertained. Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson are two such A-listers and it’s their commanding presences that save The Bucket List from being a fate worse than death"¦ As is, the premise is close to a disease-of-the-week telemovie.
Freeman is Carter, a wise old owl of a mechanic, and Nicholson is Edward, a blustery billionaire. Both men find they have terminal cancer and the script contrives to have them share a room in a hospital.
Rather than going gently into that good night, these plucky old codgers decide to fulfil a list of things they want to do before they kick the bucket. What follows is Edward splashing his money around so the boys can do a whistle stop tour of the world, while Carter espouses wisdom that makes his new friend see what’s really important in the rest of his life.
The Bucket List works only because of its leading men. Freeman delivers another velvet voiceover that sounds like the dulcet tones of God. He can make fortune cookie aphorisms sounds like mighty wisdom.
Nicholson plays himself, that rapscallion we know and love. As such he gets the film’s biggest laughs with his wry delivery. But even their combined powers can’t make us ignore that the script’s clichés, that sees revelation come about via tourist trap stopovers.
Director Rob Reiner compounds this mediocrity by using CGI to unconvincingly place his expensive actors at the Pyramids or on The Great Wall Of China. This sort trickery undermines the movie’s message about diving into real experiences and emotions. And when The Bucket List does pull out a surprise, it’s the sort of cheat that little kids use when telling stories.
Despite its many, many flaws The Bucket List works because of our affection for its leading men and rates three stars.
