The Bucket List (2007)

34. To bash your brains right the fuck in!

Everybody knows what a Bucket List is, and a lot of people will know of the movie The Bucket List, even if they haven't seen it. I was one of these until recently, and unfortunately, I could have remained one of these and been no better off for the experience. But how bad could a movie with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman really be? I got to thinking, while watching this movie, whether Nicholson and Freeman even have to audition for movies anymore. They both have their schtick, despite having wider acting ranges within their respective repertoires, and it feels like filmmakers write parts with them in mind. I mean, what kind of movie would it be if Morgan Freeman were not narrating the quasi-wisdom in his sagely drawl?

Freeman opens the movie as a booksmart mechanic, who spends his days fixing cars and demeaning his colleagues by showing off about how much random trivia he knows. Nicholson is a soulless multimillionaire who spends his introduction explaining to a court that the hospitals he owns will not offer any frills; this means, among other things, that there will always be two patients to a room. Oh hai Foreshadowing.

After coughing up blood in their respective 'discovery of illness' scenes, they end up sharing a room at one of Nicholson's hospitals, with Freeman smiling smugly about how omniscient a knowledge he has of cancer, and laughing at Nicholson when he promptly throws up his decadent rich-person food. Their banter brings them to an agreement that they will indulge in the world's hedonism before they die, and Nicholson will pay for it because hey, who doesn't this amazing situation befall following a death sentence?!

If this setup already sounds unrealistic and saccharine, then I have described it accurately. But don't be fooled into thinking that the movie somehow makes the concept of palliative care amusing, or strangely less terrifying. Nobody really likes a Lifetime-style movie that dwells on misery, but this doesn't mean a narrative can't give a perspective that provokes thought or any emotion other than depression. American Beauty managed to be almost comforting on the themes of death and fulfilled life, while The Green Mile gave a highly emotive account of man's shuffle off the mortal coil without overbalancing into melodrama. The Bucket List achieves none of these, and simply plays out in an unsettled and tonally irregular slump.

Like to get my hands on whoever wrote this script.

The men gallivant around the world, miraculously not needing their drips, bed pans and hospital beds for extended periods, and doing things that are unrealistic for such illness. Skydiving, banger racing in disgustingly beautiful vintage cars and clocking up a metric fuck tonne of airmiles, are just a few of their pursuits, and not once do they look or act as if they have terminal cancer. Sure, illness looks different on everyone, but this story just portrays it in such an unlikely manner that the whole cancer plot device seems all but abandoned, and because of this, used in a cynical and uncaring way.

Rob Reiner helms this odd piece, with such gems as Misery and Stand By Me in his portfolio. It baffles me that a director of his calibre can have so poorly judged his material, when he has previously exercised jealousy, terror, naivete, loyalty and rivalry so beautifully. As it stands, the actual story is no more than an outdated morality tale that might have been told to children in centuries past. Two polarised characters are united by a common struggle, only to learn what it really means to live; at least that's what the movie thinks it is doing.

All of our characters are as waffer-theen as the mint that causes the combustion of Mr Creosote. It is as if Nicholson and Freeman were each given a single phrase to describe their character, and they improv-ed it on the spot. Freeman is your good old working class fella, who perpetuates the old 'magical negro' stereotype by having an almost supernatural quality to his constant cheer and sagely diatribes. He regularly drills Nicholson on his atheistic attitudes about life, death and afterlife, and just gives him a knowing smirk in response to a difference of opinion. Meanwhile, Nicholson occasionally digs a little into just why Freeman is so damn sure of himself and his beliefs, only to be met with the same sorts of reactions. None of this babble goes anywhere, develops either of the characters or really pays off.

Yup, seems legit.

Other intriguing points of conversation include fucking much younger women, bowel movements and Marconi radio. Every time it feels like the narrative might just be getting a little bit of traction, it disintegrates back into more of this idle talk, with the two men walking about in front of dreadfully green screened tourist attractions. I guess the movie funnelled all its budget into top bill names, because it seemed beyond them to shoot on location at the Taj Mahal or Pyramids of Giza.


I kept telling myself throughout this movie that I should be laughing, or at least have that dreaded feel-good feeling, but I found myself constantly pissed off and kind of depressed. The ending - which really fancies itself as some poignant tying of loose ends - could not have come soon enough, and when it did, I actually felt worse of for having seen it. There is no serious look at illness or life philosophy, and the movie just feels like one big cheap and unfunny joke.