Stars:
*
Rating: PG-13 for language and mature themes
Run
Time: A mercifully brief 1 hour, 37
minutes
Even the one-two
punch of A-list heavyweights Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman can’t save this
terminal tearjerker from itself.
Edward Cole
(Nicholson) is a cantankerous health-care mogul who owns the hospital where
he’s being treated for inoperable cancer. As he famously peddles equality in
the workplace Cole is forced to share a room with dying auto mechanic Carter
Chambers (Freeman).
Chemo
treatments and close quarters offer the pair of grumpy old men plenty of
opportunity to share their disappointments and their dreams. Which flow like
lifeblood once both are handed fatal prognoses of a year.
What would
you do with unlimited resources and twelve months to live? Cole and Chambers
buddy up on a kicking-the-bucket wish list that includes skydiving, race car driving
and such wonders of the world as The Taj Mahal and the Great Wall of China. Egypt’s
lofty Pyramids and biker tattoos thrown in for good measure.
Exotic ports
of call read like a Bob Hope/Bing Crosby “Road” picture – lensed on a Hollywood
sound stage and belittling whatever dramatic edge might be proffered by a
healthy dose of reality.
Speaking of
which Cole and Chambers appear miraculously cured of malignant cells and their
ugly side effects during their symptom-free round the world odyssey, a comic
road show that makes the grave mistake of turning soft(er) by digging into
notions of reconciliation and regret.
Still sounds
like fun, no? No. Under the leaden direction of Rob Reiner “Bucket” plays like molasses
on meds; slow, superficial and sapped of any spark that might be generated by
lifestyles of the rich and famous or decades of dramatic experience in front of
the camera.
On paper
wild and crazy Nicholson and smooth as silk Freeman seem the ultimate Odd
Couple; Jack’s yappy yin to Morgan’s Zen yang. But madcap bluster takes a back
seat to moronic scripting so painful I have to believe that Reiner was calling
in favors or Nicholson needed a redo on his Mulholland Drive manse. Ugh.