 Heeere’s Jackie! Archetypal film madman Jack Nicholson (pictured) and Morgan Freeman try to see how long they can go on playing themselves in The Bucket List. |
Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman are recruited to play, more or less, Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, a couple of terminally cute oldsters on a buddy-buddy wish fulfillment quest in the newest tear-jerking serio-comedy from once-prolific director Rob Reiner.
From casting to scripting to directing, there’s nothing in The Bucket List that varies even slightly from the comfortably predictable. Still, there’s enough measurable talent on both sides of the camera to keep the schmaltzy drama and wisecracking comedy from becoming too hackneyed.
Starting in the ’80s, Reiner cranked out an uninterrupted string of box office hits, like This is Spinal Tap, Stand By Me, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally…, Misery and A Few Good Men. It’s an impressive list by any standard. Round about 1994’s North, however, Reiner took a turn for the sucky, spitting out dull, non-starters like The Story of Us, Alex & Emma and Rumor Has It.
Trailer for The Bucket List. |
For all its familiar elements, The Bucket List plays like a return to the happy-go-lucky ’80s for Reiner and Co. The high-concept plot this time around is that grumpy old Jack and wise old Morgan are a pair of terminally ill seniors stuck in a lifeless cancer ward. After a few congenial squabbles, the two become fast friends and decide to bust out of the hospital. You see, Jack’s character is a rich old bastard, and he opts to blow his fortune on helping Freeman’s character fulfill his “Things To Do Before I Kick the Bucket” list (hence, the film’s title). Cue lots of CGI footage of Jack and Morgan (really, it’s not worth noting their character names) skydiving, racing cars, going on safari and assorted other globe-hopping adventures.
Jack and Morgan’s “Amazing Race”-style world tour is hampered only by the fact that it takes place all in the comfort of a Hollywood studio with the stars economically posed in front of a parade of green-screen postcards featuring the Eiffel Tower, the pyramids of Egypt, the Great Wall of China, etc. Over the course of their journey—during which their terminal illnesses are, of course, never an issue—our boys manage to shoehorn in a few quick lessons about life, love, family and friendship. Jack, you see, is rich but unhappy with an estranged daughter waiting in the wings, ripe for climactic reconciliation. Morgan, meanwhile, lives his life full of regret, having given up his dreams of academia for a menial, family-supporting job. The resolution to these problems comes in the most obvious manner possible, allowing for easy audience uplift shortly before the credits roll.
 The gun man and God: Nicholson and perpetual narrator Morgan Freeman stop for a photo-op, perhaps to commemorate director Rob Reiner’s return to form. The Bucket List is still better than Alex & Emma. |
Freeman has always had a certain gravitas as an actor, and it could have served this story well had the filmmakers decided to go in a more serious direction. They didn’t. As a result, Freeman basically acts as the straight man for wacky Jack. He’s also there to provide his patented Wise Old Morgan Freeman-Brand narration, which I’m pretty sure must appear in at least one movie per year under legislation drafted by California state senators back in the mid-’90s.
Easy, predictable and harmless as a placebo, The Bucket List is just the thing for people in search of the ultimate oxymoron—a “feel good” movie about dying.