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THE BUCKET LIST / Rob Reiner (2007)

December 21st, 2007 by Scott Marks

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The Bucket List (2007)
Directed by Rob Reiner
Written by Justin Zackham
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Morgan Freeman, Sean Hayes, Beverly Todd & Rob Morrow
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

The letter in the FedEx bag filled with Warners and Full Focus screeners cautioned me against loaning or giving away my copies of the advance DVDs. Do they think a guy that loves movies as much as I do wants to see an industry reduced to opening night premieres on TV monitors or iPhone screens? That’s called television, not movies.

Anyone who pirates first run features for cheap imbeciles to watch on their computer equipment, thus stealing revenue from the industry I so dearly love, should be put hunted down and put to death while their family is forced to look on.

Normally, I set the screeners aside until I have a chance to see the film where it belongs, projected on the big screen. This is Rob Reiner. What chances were there that it would lose and cinematic voltage on my 35-inch Sony?

It’s a goddamned cancer travelogue.

The richest man in the world (Jack Nicholson) and an average Joe (Morgan Freeman) meet in a cancer ward owned by the former.

Initially the two don’t hit it off, but after weeks of sharing a room together, surly Jack thaws and decides to do a good deed by making Freeman’s “bucket list” come true. (A “bucket list” consists of things you never had a chance to do before you kick the bucket.)

For the first thirty minutes, I was convinced that this was based on a two character play set entirely in a hospital room. No such luck. What starts as acerbic and perhaps even a bit insightful soon gives way to a travelogue that would make the folks at Hallmark greeting cards stand up and cheer.

With “f.u.” money to burn, the boys leave their hospital beds in search of a slam-bang final chapter to their lives. From Tibet to the Taj Majal and Singapore our terminally ill twosome embark on an all access, picture postcard world tour that would have a dizzying effect on the similarly booked-to-capacity travelers in Les Blank’s contemptuous documentary Innocents Abroad. (It would make a great double bill with The Bucket List, particularly if it was the first feature and you decided to kick The Bucket.)

Freeman’s character is happily married and the film never quite comes to terms with why, in his last months alive, he decides to abandon his loving family in favor of globe trotting with a cranky billionaire.

A one-woman man, when the topic of getting some strange before he exits comes up, Freeman politely declines. Even the advances of a beautiful woman (a hooker bankrolled by Jack) fail to get Freeman’s attention. He obviously loves his wife. Why would he want to spend his remaining time anywhere but in her company?

Both of the actors are superb, and while I’d hesitate to peg this as material Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau would have turned down (I suffered through Out to Sea and The Odd Couple II), it comes close to that type of cutesy, doddering entertainment bound to sell a boatload of senior tickets.

Nicholson hasn’t been in a thoroughly satisfying film in ages. The Two Jakes instantly compensated for Batman’s hambone mugging and it’s been downhill ever since. Over the years he’s shown a commendable allegiance to directors who did him justice, particularly Mike Nichols and Bob Rafelson. Wolf lacked the bite of Carnal Knowledge and both Man Trouble and Blood and Wine were miscalculations at best. A sequel to Terms of Endearment was unthinkable.

Jack must have been feeling sentimental when Rob Reiner (who directed Nicholson to an Oscar nomination in A Few Good Men) called. His Batman-esque funny faces and arm flailing in The Departed were as much a deterrent as Marty’s lazy direction. And how humiliating must it have been for the Academy to slight Jack in favor of Marky Mark? It was time to return to the safety of a sitcom actor turned big screen sitcom director and the potential of Oscar that it offers.

The role fits Nicholson better than the hospital gown his gut wrestles with for the first third of the picture. Something tells me that when Jack’s partied-out lungs finally give out and it’s time to dig a hole, every entertainment program in the know universe will lead with clips from this movie.

Still, one must see everything with Jack Nicholson or Morgan Freeman in it. Unfortunately this turned out to be the film that stars both.

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Filed Under Reviews, Theatrical