Movie Review: "The Bucket List"

Rob Reiner's "The Bucket List" features Jack Nicholson as a cantankerous billionaire and Morgan Freeman as the winking, twinkling teller of truths. Neither role is a stretch for these actors; we have all seen this shtick before.

The movie kicks off with one of Morgan Freeman's trademark "This is God speaking" wisdom-induced voiceovers. Edward Cole (Jack Nicholson), the rich SOB, and Carter Chambers, (Morgan Freeman) the car mechanic who once had aspirations of being a history professor, end up in the same room in the cancer ward of a hospital that Edward owns. Each of the men is given a dim prognosis, forecasting that each will be dead in under a year. Being forced to face their own mortality, the two end up writing a bucket list together-a list of things that they want to accomplish before they kick the proverbial bucket.

Some of the entries on their bucket list include:

Laugh 'til you cry

Skydive

Drive a Shelby Mustang

Get a Tattoo

Help a complete stranger for the good

While some of the more robust entries are:

Visit the Taj Mahal

See Rome

Hunt for lions in Africa

Climb Mt. Everest

During the traveling interludes, the two men share life stories and each offers advice to the other one regarding personal dilemmas. This dialogue was purposely inserted into the movie to remind the audience that "The Bucket List" isn't just a movie about two globetrotting old men.

The movie explains that each of the men enters into remission, as far as their cancer health status is concerned at the time of the globetrotting. Although this explanation is meant to help the viewers believe that each man is physically capable of transporting themselves halfway around the world, it is not really believable. Edward and Carter break out of the cancer ward and are then immediately on an airplane to going skydiving.

There is another issue with the movie that audiences may have a hard time reconciling. Viewers learn that Carter was forced to abandon his ambition to become a history professor. He dropped out of college and became a mechanic when his wife unexpectedly got pregnant. The movie requires that viewers fully believe that such a devoted husband and father would deliberately spend time away from his loved ones to see the world in his final days.

While "The Bucket List" doesn't force viewers to face their own mortality in the way that it sets out to do, it does drive home the idea that we need to count our blessings, stop and smell the roses, and hug our loved ones before it is too late.

Best Line in the Movie: "You measure yourself by the people who measure themselves by you."

Rated PG-13 for language, including a sexual reference.

Runtime: 97 minutes