"THE BUCKET LIST" (2007) ..... B ...

This is a film with modest ambitions and only rarely exceeds them during the few moments where the writing and the emotions rise to meet the talent of the two great actors who star in this movie. In a story which would probably make a better play than a movie, two men (Nicholson and Freeman) share a hospital room and both find out that they have the "Big C" far before their time.

Needless to say, the appearance of two of our most iconic actors in Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman is most decidedly the highlight of this movie. With the charisma that these two bring to the silver screen, I would almost pay to hear them recite names out of a telephone book. (Why Morgan Freeman doesn't make a mint of money doing more voiceovers is beyond me, for he has one of the most pleasantly sonorous voices in Hollywood.) Unfortunately, I received the distinct impression that these two actors had a lot more fun making this movie than I did in watching it.

Edward Cole (Jack Nicholson) happens to own a chain of hospitals and has money to burn. What he doesn't have is a family, as he has four failed marriages behind him and no one cares about him unless they are being paid. Carter Chambers (Morgan Freeman) is just the opposite as a blue collar garage mechanic. He has worked all of his life to raise his family without asking for anything in return, and as a result he has their steadfast love and devotion. A self-educated man, he loves watching "Jeopardy" and always offers the correct answer before the contestants.

The concept of a movie about the final days of two men who have been given death sentences by cancer sounds unremittingly dreary, but this film manages to sparkle a little thanks to its two leads along with costars like Sean Hayes ("Will and Grace"), who capably but thanklessly serves as the go-fer and right hand man for Cole, a billionaire developer of for-profit hospitals. Beverly Todd is also impressive as Carter's wife, Virginia.

Edward Cole, the one without a caring family, convinces Carter Chambers to leave his loving family behind to go on a worldwide joyride in an effort to scratch everything off their "bucket list" of things to do before they die. Cole, who happens to be a misanthrope through and through, feels that this is the best way to spend their final days. This is easy for him to say, since he is estranged from his family, but the members of Carter's extended family are not at all happy to be left in the lurch while he goes off on a cockamamie adventure with a complete stranger.

Left largely unfulfilled are thoughts of family and personal growth in favor of a rather shallow and materialistic idea promoted by Cole that the two men should spend a large amount of (his) money and the remainder of their time doing largely unnecessary "things," like traveling to exotic foreign locales. Rather oddly, Edward Cole evidences no interest whatever in getting his financial house in order.

Carter says it all when he complains to Edward that "I've had baths that were deeper than you." That pretty much summarizes this movie as well. That being said, I will grant that a few feel good moments were added to the end of this story to make the logic of this effort appear to be more palatable to both us in the audience and the distraught members of the extended Chambers family. However, I would point out that something along these lines had to be added in an effort to add to the depth of this cinematic bath to mitigate our presumed pathos over the demise of the two lead characters.

There is some fun here along with the eye candy of numerous snippets of world class destinations that few of us will ever see, but regrettably, the premise only gleams off the surface of the concept. 97 minutes and rated PG-13 for language, including a sexual reference.