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The Bucket List (2007)
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Reviews Counted:34
Fresh:8
Rotten:26
Average Rating:4.5/10
Consensus: Not even the earnest performances of the two leads can rescue The Bucket List from its schmaltzy script.
Runtime: 1 hr 37 mins
Genre: Comedies
Theatrical Release:Jan 11, 2008 Wide
Box Office: $93,452,056
Synopsis: Academy Award winners Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman star in the comedy drama "The Bucket List," directed by Rob Reiner, a touching, no-holds-barred adventure that shows it's never too late to... Academy Award winners Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman star in the comedy drama "The Bucket List," directed by Rob Reiner, a touching, no-holds-barred adventure that shows it's never too late to live life to its fullest. A long time ago, Carter Chambers' (Morgan Freeman) freshman year philosophy professor suggested that his students compose a "bucket list," a collection of all the things they wanted to do, see and experience in life before they kicked the bucket. But while Carter was still trying to define his private dreams and plans, reality intruded. Marriage, children, myriad responsibilities and, ultimately, a 46-year job as an auto mechanic gradually turned his concept of a bucket list into little more than a bittersweet memory of lost opportunities and a mental exercise he occasionally thought about to pass the time while working under the hood of a car. Meanwhile, corporate billionaire Edward Cole (Jack Nicholson) never saw a list without a bottom line. He was always too busy making money and building an empire to think about what his deeper needs might be beyond the next big acquisition or cup of gourmet coffee. Then life delivered an urgent and unexpected wake-up call to both of them. Carter and Edward found themselves sharing a hospital room with plenty of time to think about what might happen next--and about how much of that was in their hands. For all their apparent differences, they soon discovered they had two very important things in common: an unrealized need to come to terms with who they were and the choices they'd made, and a pressing desire to spend the time they had left doing everything they ever wanted to do. The list wasn't just a mental exercise anymore. It was an agenda. So, against doctor's orders and all good sense, these two virtual strangers check themselves out of the hospital and hit the road together for the adventure of a lifetime--from the Taj Mahal to the Serengeti, the finest restaurants to the seediest tattoo parlors, the cockpit of vintage race cars to the open door of a prop plane--with just a sheet of paper and their passion for life to guide them. Adding and crossing items off their list while taking in the grandeur and beauty of the world, they will grapple with the difficult questions and the even more difficult answers that plague all of us. And, without even realizing it, become true friends. With humor, insight, heart...and a fair amount of attitude. Sometimes you just need a deadline to get your life in gear. --© Warner Bros. [More]
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Morgan Freeman, Sean Hayes, Rob Morrow
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Morgan Freeman, Sean Hayes, Rob Morrow, Beverly Todd
Director: Rob Reiner
Director: Rob Reiner
Screenwriter: Justin Zackham
Producer: Alan Greisman, Rob Reiner, Craig Zadan, Neil Meron
Composer: Marc Shaiman
Studio: Warner Bros.
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Reviews for The Bucket List
You get the performances you expect from these two great stars, which lift this story mercifully but marginally above its meager content.
The movie is caught in the crossfire of its two missions -- to celebrate the universal things that "really matter" in life (friendship, family) and to celebrate what it means to live like Jack Nicholson.
Not every film about death needs a bald Swede and a game of chess: Sometimes, the sky-diving's enough.
By the end of The Bucket List, silliness has been replaced by pretension, and while there may not be a dry eye in the theater, many of those tears will be shed in embarrassment for giving in to such hooey.
Watching Nicholson and Freeman on the same screen and their characters Edward and Carter embarking on a sojourn of discovery is hard to resist.
Bucket's rush to sentiment leads you to think the film, not its characters, is soon to expire.
A manipulative look at dying with dignity and a lame yarn about as realistic as the fantasy in The Princess Bride.
I urgently advise hospitals: Do not make the DVD available to your patients; there may be an outbreak of bedpans thrown at TV screens.
Nothing wrong about a movie that says, Stop and smell the roses. Now, if only director Rob Reiner hadn't rubbed our noses in a bouquet of plastic blooms.
Great actors sometimes transcend their material, but Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman can't pull their boots free from the ankle-deep schmaltz of The Bucket List.
The overall sense is of a movie coasting on an obvious and somewhat flimsy premise, to which no one thought to bring much else besides Nicholson and Freeman.
This being Oscar-coveting Hollywood claptrap, class barriers vanish as the two become best friends and Nicholson bankrolls a spree in which they indulge their deepest romantic whims.
It's fun, for two minutes, to see Nicholson and Freeman jumping out of a plane, but once they've gotten tattoos and raced vintage cars, the movie is already scraping the bottom of the bucket.
Nicholson and Freeman are so lovably companionable, they almost make you forget the glaring contrivances screenwriter Justin Zackham concocts.
Any filmgoer’s Bucket List should be seeing these two legends playing off one another.
The Bucket List is a messy free-for-all, but it’s a genuine pleasure to watch two hired hands literally running the rodeo.
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