The Bucket List (2007)

Considering how low my expectations were going into this movie, I find that I enjoyed this film a lot more than I had expected to. In The Bucket List, two terminally ill elderly Oscar winners leave the cancer ward together on a quest to complete a list of things to-do before they die. This is not the type of movie that I would normally imagine that I would enjoy; nonetheless, it was not all that bad. Considering that the two leading men have both won Best Actor awards, it came as no surprise that the acting in this film is top drawer. Nicholson and Freeman both have surprisingly good on-screen chemistry, and are both really believable in these roles. While that does do a lot to salvage this movie, it is still not particularly special. If you do not become emotionally invested in the main characters, it is kind of hard to care what happens to them, and this movie is short to the point that it is difficult to become attached to Nicholson and Freeman, aside from the fact that we have been loving their work for years. The Bucket List does offer a few moments of real enjoyment. The two old men have a lot of interesting conversations about the meaning of life and what they believe is going to happen following their deaths. They do not discover any specifically revealing insights, but their conversations are still interesting and provoking. Additionally, The Bucket List forces the viewer to contemplate what they would do if they knew they were going to die, how they would spend their final hours. It is a difficult thing to force one's self to think about, and probably not possible to realistically consider if it is not actually happening, but the idea can still be overwhelming. I am not in love with this movie, and I will never watch it again, but I enjoyed it enough that I do not regret seeing it. My wife did not watch it with me, but I doubt she would have liked it, so that's no great loss. If I were older, or dying, or had recently lost a loved one, I think this film might have meant a lot more to me. As it is, it was worth my hour and a half but little more. I give The Bucket List 2 and a half stars.