''The Bucket List'' is a 2007 American buddy

comedy-drama Comedy drama (also known by the portmanteau dramedy) is a hybrid genre of works that combine elements of comedy and Drama (film and television), drama. In film, as well as scripted television series, serious dramatic subjects (such as death, il ...

film A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, sinc ...

directed and produced by Rob Reiner, written by Justin Zackham, and starring

Jack Nicholson John Joseph Nicholson (born April 22, 1937) is an American retired actor and filmmaker. Nicholson is widely regarded as one of the greatest actors of the 20th century, often playing rebels fighting against the social structure. Over his five-de ...

and Morgan Freeman. The main plot follows two terminally ill men on their road trip with a

wish list A wish list, wishlist or want list is a list of goods or services that a person or organization desires. The author may distribute copies of their list to family, friends, and other stakeholder (corporate), stakeholders who are likely to purch ...

of things to do before they " kick the bucket". Zackham coined the expression "bucket list" after he wrote his own "List of Things to do Before I Kick the Bucket" and shortened it to "Justin's Bucket List". The first item on his list was to "get a film made at a major studio". This list gave him the idea for the screenplay, and ''The Bucket List'' became his first studio film. The film premiered on December 15, 2007, in Hollywood and opened in

limited release __FORCETOC__ Limited theatrical release is a film distribution strategy of releasing a new film in a few cinemas across a country, typically art house theaters in major metropolitan markets. Since 1994, a limited theatrical release in the Unite ...

in the United States on December 25, 2007, by Warner Bros. The film then had a wide release on January 11, 2008. Despite receiving mixed reviews from critics, the film was chosen by National Board of Review as one of the top ten films of 2007 and was a box office success, opening at #1 in the United States, and grossed over $175 million worldwide, against a $45 million budget.

Plot

Two elderly men, blue-collar automotive mechanic Carter Chambers and billionaire Edward Cole, meet for the first time in a hospital owned by Edward after both men are diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Carter, a gifted

amateur An amateur () is generally considered a person who pursues an avocation independent from their source of income. Amateurs and their pursuits are also described as popular, informal, autodidacticism, self-taught, user-generated, do it yourself, DI ...

historian and family man, wanted to become a history professor in his youth but chose to start a family instead. Edward, a four-time divorced healthcare tycoon and cultured loner, enjoys drinking kopi luwak, one of the most expensive coffees in the world and mocking his personal valet Matthew, whom he wrongly but intentionally calls Thomas. While in the hospital, Carter and Edward manage to find common ground. For fun, Carter started writing a list of activities to do before he " kicks the bucket." After hearing he has less than a year to live, he dejectedly discards his list. Edward finds the list the next morning and urges him to do everything on it, adds his own items and offers to finance all expenses. Carter agrees and though his wife Virginia objects, the two patients begin their globetrotting last vacation along with Matthew. They go

skydiving Parachuting and skydiving are methods of descending from a high point in an atmosphere to the ground or ocean surface with the aid of gravity, involving the control of speed during the descent using a parachute or multiple parachutes. For hu ...

, drive a vintage Shelby Mustang and Dodge Challenger around California Speedway, fly over the

North Pole The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's rotation, Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distingu ...

, eat dinner at Chèvre d'or, visit the

Taj Mahal The Taj Mahal ( ; ; ) is an ivory-white marble mausoleum on the right bank of the river Yamuna in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India. It was commissioned in 1631 by the fifth Mughal Empire, Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan () to house the tomb of his belo ...

, ride motorcycles on the

Great Wall of China The Great Wall of China (, literally "ten thousand ''li'' long wall") is a series of fortifications in China. They were built across the historical northern borders of ancient Chinese states and Imperial China as protection against vario ...

, attend a lion

safari A safari (; originally ) is an overland journey to observe wildlife, wild animals, especially in East Africa. The so-called big five game, "Big Five" game animals of Africa – lion, African leopard, leopard, rhinoceros, African elephant, elep ...

Tanzania Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It is bordered by Uganda to the northwest; Kenya to the northeast; the Indian Ocean to the east; Mozambique and Malawi to t ...

and visit

Mount Everest Mount Everest (), known locally as Sagarmatha in Nepal and Qomolangma in Tibet, is Earth's highest mountain above sea level. It lies in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas and marks part of the China–Nepal border at it ...

. Atop the Great Pyramid of Giza, they confide mutually about faith and family. Carter reveals that he has long been feeling less in love with his wife and feels some regret for his chosen path. Edward discloses that he is deeply hurt by his estrangement from his only daughter, who estranged him after he drove away her abusive husband. Later, while in

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

, Edward hires a

prostitute Prostitution is a type of sex work that involves engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, non-pe ...

to approach Carter, who has never been with any woman but his wife. Carter declines and insists they stop the bucket list and go home. During the return journey, Carter tries to reunite Edward with his estranged daughter. Considering this a breach of trust, Edward scolds Carter and then angrily storms off. Carter returns home to his family while Edward, feeling alone, breaks down weeping in his luxury home. Carter’s family reunion turns out to be short-lived as while readying for marital romance, he collapses and is rushed to the hospital, where it is discovered that the cancer has spread to his brain. Edward, now in a remarkable remission, visits him to reconcile. Carter, always a ''

Jeopardy! ''Jeopardy!'' is an American television game show created by Merv Griffin. The show is a quiz competition that reverses the traditional question-and-answer format of many quiz shows. Rather than being given questions, contestants are instead g ...

'' fan knowledgeable about trivia, reveals how Edward's kopi luwak coffee is fed to and defecated by a jungle cat before being harvested. As the two laugh hysterically over the obscure fact, Carter implores Edward to finish the list for him. After Carter dies during surgery, Edward manages to reconcile with his own daughter and she introduces him to the granddaughter he never knew he had. After greeting the little girl by kissing her cheek, Edward thoughtfully crosses "kiss the most beautiful girl in the world" off the bucket list. Soon after, Edward delivers a eulogy at Carter’s funeral, during which he explains that the last three months of Carter's life were, thanks to Carter, the best three months of his own. An epilogue reveals that Edward lived to age 81 and Matthew then took his ashes to a peak in the

Himalayas The Himalayas, or Himalaya ( ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the Earth's highest peaks, including the highest, Mount Everest. More than list of h ...

. As Matthew places a Chock full o'Nuts coffee can of Edward's ashes alongside another can of Carter's ashes, he crosses off the last item on the bucket list, "witness something truly majestic", and tucks the completed list between the cans. A voice-over from Carter says that he thought Edward would have gotten a laugh out of being buried on a mountain as it is apparently against the law.

Cast

Release

The film opened in wide release in the United States and Canada on January 11, 2008 and grossed $19,392,416 from around 3,200 screens across 2,911 theaters, averaging $6,662 per theater ($6,060 per screen) and ranking #1 at the box office. The film closed on June 5, 2008, never having a weekend-to-weekend decline of more than 40%, and ended up with a final gross of $93,466,502 in the United States and Canada and another $81,906,000 overseas, for a total gross of $175,372,502 worldwide, easily recouping the film's considerable $45 million budget and turning a sizable profit for Warner Bros.

Reception

''The Bucket List'' received mixed reviews from critics. On

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, the film has a rating of 40% based on 177 reviews, with an average rating of 5.20/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Not even the earnest performances of the two leads can rescue ''The Bucket List'' from its schmaltzy script".

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

gave the film a score of 42 out of 100, based on 34 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by

CinemaScore CinemaScore is an American market research firm based in Las Vegas. It surveys film audiences to rate their viewing experiences with letter grades, reports the results, and forecasts box office receipts from the data. Background Ed Mintz, who ...

gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale. ''Chicago Sun-Times'' film critic

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert ( ; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American Film criticism, film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He wrote for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. Eber ...

, who was diagnosed with

thyroid cancer Thyroid cancer is cancer that develops from the tissues of the thyroid gland. It is a disease in which cells grow abnormally and have the potential to spread to other parts of the body. Symptoms can include swelling or a lump in the neck, ...

in 2002 and whose lower jaw was removed in 2006, criticized the film's portrayal of cancer sufferers, writing in his one-star review that ''The Bucket List'' "...thinks dying of cancer is a laff riot followed by a dime-store epiphany."

Accolades

''The Bucket List'' was named one of the ten best films of 2007 by the National Board of Review.

Soundtrack

A score album from Varèse Sarabande was released on January 15, 2008, featuring composer

Marc Shaiman Marc Shaiman ( ; born October 22, 1959) is an American composer and lyricist for films, television, and theatre, best known for his collaborations with lyricist and director Scott Wittman, actor Billy Crystal, and director Rob Reiner. Shaiman ha ...

's original score for the film as well as a selection of newly recorded themes from Shaiman's previous scoring projects, including '' City Slickers'', '' Simon Birch'', '' The Addams Family'', ''

Mother A mother is the female parent of a child. A woman may be considered a mother by virtue of having given birth, by raising a child who may or may not be her biological offspring, or by supplying her ovum for fertilisation in the case of ges ...

'', ''

North North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating Direction (geometry), direction or geography. Etymology T ...

'', '' Sleepless in Seattle'', '' South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut'', '' Mr. Saturday Night'', and '' Stuart Saves His Family''. It also features a rearranged version of the

James Bond The ''James Bond'' franchise focuses on James Bond (literary character), the titular character, a fictional Secret Intelligence Service, British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels ...

theme " Goldfinger" (titled "Printmaster"), with Shaiman's own voice and lyrics in which he spoofs the industry's habit of tracking music in scenes where they do not belong. The full list of 23 songs is as follows: # Hospital Hallway (from the movie) # Like Smoke through a Keyhole (from the movie) # Best in L.A. (from the movie) # Really Bad News (from the movie) # Milord – Édith Piaf (from the movie) # Hotel Source (from the movie) # Did You Hear It? (from the movie) # Flying Home (from the movie) # Homecomings (from the movie) # Life and Death (from the movie) # The Mountain (from the movie) # End Credits (from the movie) # Theme from '' The American President'' ("A Seed of Grain") # Theme from ''City Slickers'' # Theme from ''Simon Birch'' # Theme from ''The Addams Family'' # Theme from ''Mother'' # Theme from ''North'' # ''Sleepless in Seattle'' / A Wink and a Smile" # ''South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut''/ " Blame Canada" # Theme from ''Mr. Saturday Night'' # "Printmaster" (After John Barry's "Goldfinger") # Theme from ''Stuart Saves His Family'' ("What Makes a Family") The theme song, John Mayer's " Say", is not included on the Bucket List soundtrack, but included on the re-release of Mayer's third album '' Continuum''.

Home media

The film was released on DVD and

Blu-ray Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...

on June 10, 2008.

Footnotes

# The " Castle Rock Entertainment" logo does not appear in this film's opening.

References

External links