Thursday, Jan. 10, 08

Geezers Gone Wild

The Bucket List brings more tears than laughs

By Dan Hudak

Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman play two old geezers on a grand adventure.

There’s a lot of suffering in The Bucket List, from both the movie’s cancer-stricken patients and the audience, which endures the painfully unfunny, melodramatic story. This could and should have been a sweet tale about two old coots on a grand adventure. Instead, it’s a sorry excuse for a tearjerker.

Shortly after we’re introduced to Edward Cole (Jack Nicholson) and Carter Chambers (Morgan Freeman), we learn they are terminally ill with cancer. Edward is an eccentric millionaire who’s made his fortune by building hospitals, and because of his insistence upon “two beds to a room, no exceptions,” he finds himself rooming with Carter, an auto mechanic.

It’s a meeting that allows Nicholson and Freeman to play their well-established screen personas with little variation or originality. These opposites, however, do attract. So when Edward discovers Carter’s “bucket list” — things to do before he “kicks the bucket” — they decide to take Edward’s private plane around the world and experience all that life has to offer.

Both men look a little too healthy to be cancer patients, and there’s no real joy in watching their global journey. A morose sense of doom clouds the trip as they race cars, sky dive and visit the Taj Mahal and the Himalayas. And the movie comes to a grinding halt when Edward and Carter stop exchanging one-liners and wax philosophical about life and regrets while looking out at the Pyramids. These worldwide excursions are fine for an up-tempo montage, but don’t have the weight to carry a substantial portion of the film.

Edward and Carter might have enjoyed themselves more — and made the film more enjoyable — if they didn’t have emotional guilt hanging over their heads. Carter leaves his loving wife (Beverly Todd) behind for the sake of the adventure; Edward has a long-lost daughter with whom he must reconcile before dying. Add a good 40 minutes of chemo-induced suffering and Sean Hayes (Will and Grace) desperately trying to offer comic relief as Edward’s assistant and you have a movie that misses on all levels.

The world-tour destinations were obviously filmed on a sound stage, making the film even less believable. This could be forgiven if the tone was lighter and funnier, but writer Justin Zackham’s script struggles to find humor in two men having one last hurrah before their inevitable deaths. It’s kind of sad, actually. Melancholic. It’s certainly not the feel-good family fare you’re expecting, and it’s definitely not the career boost director Rob Reiner has sorely needed for the last 13 years (his last hit was The American President in 1995, with Michael Douglas and Annette Bening).

On the bright side, it’s probably a good thing The Bucket List isn’t very funny and has limited box office prospects. With Hollywood being the copycat community it is, who knows how many Geezers Gone Wild movies this could inspire.