‘The Bucket List’ Stumbles on Blocky Segments and Erratic Pacing
-----In an intriguing move, screen legends Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman teamed up for this buddy comedy about the last months of their lives. Whether or not they’d be able to carry a comedy together, neither coming relying heavily on humorous backgrounds, was a lingering question. However, no one suspected that the real question would be whether or not the film itself would even be the comedy that was advertised.
-----When hospital franchise owner Edward Cole (Jack Nicholson) is forced to share a room with poor family man mechanic Carter Chambers (Morgan Freeman), the two find themselves bonding in the adversity of their respective situations. When each is diagnosed with cancer, they decide to go out and do the things they always wanted to, courtesy Cole’s accumulated wealth. However, as they try to escape the seeming hopelessness of what could be their final six months on Earth, the real world catches up with them and they are forced to face the music.
-----Nicholson and Freeman bring their usual to the table as the film’s leads, each playing roles we’ve seen them in often. Unfortunately, despite some good chemistry, they can’t keep this depressing and misdirecting film above water. There’s a few laughs, but unfortunately they do a better job at providing the drama, which becomes slightly cliché and too sentimental for my tastes. It’s not that this didn’t work, it’s that these two could’ve have been used for something a lot better, and the laughs are smashed into a brief section of the film, with pacing often becoming an issue.
-----The film starts slow, gets going, slows down again, and eventually loses its feet somewhere in the third act. Unable to provide a fine mix of serious and hilarious, it instead blocks them out so one half hour will be just gags, with the next being all business. Ultimately, in a film called, ‘The Bucket List,’ it isn’t necessary to spend 30 minutes telling us they’re dying, but perhaps the film’s overall misdirection and unsteady blend of human emotions lead to this failure among others. At times lightning fast, at others slow as a snail, the film never develops a pace that effectively keeps the audiences attention, leaving you alienated and in disarray.
-----It can boast some quality locations here and there with the cinematography often playing a strong role in developing the human aspect of the characters. The film also does a nice job of putting you into their shoes, showing their desperation to forget what they view as dire situations. In fact, the movie almost does too good a job at this, advertising a comedy while it’s in actuality a sobering drama. Whatever it takes to get people in the seats, I guess.
-----Overall I went away form this movie upset, knowing that it could have been something fresher and better. It doesn’t even wrap up the sentimentality with the level of closure I would have found adequate. The leads do, however, develop a nice chemistry that brings this film into the realm of nearly passable entertainment. Many may even find their chemistry makes the movie worth a viewing, but a single screening should suffice. Babe Ruth and Willie Mayes can’t win the game on the bench, and unfortunately ‘The Bucket List’ does just that with its stars, as they sit and watch convention intermingled with drama and the occasional quality character moment. While it did have many fulfilling characteristics, the negatives outweighed the positives, and when that’s the case, the chances are you’ll be too disappointed to remember the good stuff.
