The Bucket List Review

We knew before we saw The Bucket List that it had gotten mixed reviews but we wanted to see it anyway. When my husband turned 60 he had some sort of epiphany- not to put off what we can do now. The Bucket List sounded like lists we have made.

A Closer Look

The Bucket List directed by Rob Reiner and written by Justin Zackham is a mix of comedy and drama. It's not a tear jerker in the way the movie Beaches was but you may get chocked up in places. What may seem like a simple movie - certainly a predictable movie - has a lot of important themes and lessons.

Unlike Charlie Wilson's War that my husband and I walked out of at the end and never talked about The Bucket List kept us thinking and talking.  We thought about the messages iin the movie:  love, companionship, friendship, family, loneliness, priorities, faith and fill in your blanks after you see it.

The premise of the movie is that two of the best actors in movie history, Jack Nicholson as Edward Cole, a wealthy businessman (His business is hospitals) and Morgan Freeman as Carter Chambers a brilliant mechanic who wanted to be a history teacher but life got in the way, are terminally ill. No spoilers in my reviews so I'll just say that Tim McGraw's song Live Like You Were Dying should have been the theme song to this movie.

Sean Hayes as Cole's assistant does a terrific job as does Carter's wife, Virginia Chambers, played by Beverly Todd. One of my favorite television actors, Rob Morrow (Numbers), plays Dr. Hollins.

There were a couple of problems in the movie.

1. Cole is a billionaire. Most of us can't live like we are dying in the ways he could however I gave this a lot of thought and realized we can scale it way down. For example rather than going to a beach in France, we can go to Cape Cod!

2. At one point the list is ripped but later in the movie it shows up in one piece.

The Bucket List is rated  PG -13 for language and some sexual references. It is 97 minutes long. The time flew by. Although there were a couple of slow parts I never nodded off or wanted to.

*"I went skydiving
I went rocky mountain climbing
I went two point seven seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu
And I loved deeper
And I spoke sweeter
And I gave forgiveness I'd been denyin'
And he said some day I hope you get the chance
To live like you were dyin' "  Tim McGraw - lyrics of Live Like You were Dying

from www.lyrics007.com/Tim%20McGraw%20Lyrics/Live%20Like%20You%20Were%20Dying%20Lyrics.html