Directed by Rob Reiner and starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, The Bucket List, which goes wide this weekend to 2,900 theaters after opening in limited fashion on Christmas Day, bears an achingly appropriate and on-the-nose title, carrying as
it does such a load of Hollywood convention. A slice of hammy,
moralizing old-school life lessons learned, wrapped around a few
colorful set pieces of Centrum Silver catharsis, the movie is like a
vitamin pill; it’s a compact means of conveyance for several of those
old chestnuts of interpersonal guidance that always get trotted out for
the holidays: do good, don’t live timidly and forgive quickly.

The
story centers around a pair of old guys from very different tax
brackets, each stricken with cancer and given a grim prognosis.
Millionaire businessman Edward Cole (Nicholson) has made a career,
we’re led to believe, out of cutting costs if not corners in operating
medical facilities all across the nation. Carter Chambers (Freeman),
meanwhile, is a humble auto mechanic and Jeopardy
buff who’s lived a simple life in service of his wife Virginia (Beverly
Todd), children and grandchildren. When the two secondhand lions are
relegated to roommate status (it would look very bad if Edward were
given a private room after just having lobbied against them so
publicly, his chirpy assistant Thomas, played by Sean Hayes, informs
him), Edward develops an unlikely affinity for Carter. Faced with his
own mortality, Carter grabs a nearby pad and starts to sketch out a
quick inventory of things he would have liked to do in his life. He
eventually crumples up the piece of paper, though. Edward finds it, and
enthusiastically seizes upon Carter’s idea.

Sentimentality and air-quote adventure are thus ladled on in equal
servings, as — funded by Edward’s seemingly bottomless personal fortune
— the pair go skydiving, travel the world and talk about opportunities
missed and silences held too long. Audiences are meant to emotionally
connect with this fraternal bonding — and especially the predicament
Edward faces in a needlessly complicated estrangement from his
daughter — but they may be too distracted by the green-screen work at
the Great Pyramids that makes the movie seem like a strange, lost Stargate episode, or how curiously bungled the arc is involving Carter explaining all his travels with Edward to his wife.

The Bucket List is being sold in rather indolent fashion on the
salty, wrinkly appeal of its two leads, and a few of their quips and
asides. Ergo, you have trailers and heavy-rotation TV ads with the
skydiving clips, Carter good-naturedly chiding Edward “Sonny Jim”
during a race car segment, and Edward (in inimitable Nicholson fashion)
dismissively telling his assistant Thomas, “Nobody cares what you
think.” By golly,
one could think, this is the perfect, long-awaited counterweight to
something like Grumpy Old Men, about finding bliss and true release in the autumn of one’s years. The problem is that Justin Zackham’s script
doesn’t really rise to meet one’s preconceptions of the material,
however emotionally resonant or pleasantly indulgent they may be.

Somehow both manipulative and overly simplistic, The Bucket List
is a film of half-steps and pat, overly measured sequences; whether it’s
scenes of Edward’s sickness or him angrily
rejecting Carter’s attempt at broaching a reconciliation with his
daughter, nothing much rings in-close-up true about this shared
journey. There isn’t a convincing sense of the significant class
barriers smashed — Edward and Carter fall into fast friendship like
kindergarten classmates assigned to the same roundtable. To their
nominal credit, Nicholson and Freeman each do their thing, in
characteristic fashion, and that’s certainly enough to please
undemanding viewers wanting only to see the two legendary actors
together in frame. But this claptrap — evidencing no truly substantial
emotional investment from anyone involved — is recycled, formulaic
poignance, something Hollywood has provided buckets of over the years. For the full original review, from FilmStew, click here. (Warner Bros., PG-13, 96 minutes)