Film review

The Bucket List:

More than wishful thinking

by Dilshan Boange

The Bucket List is a movie that will surely tug at your heartstrings. A comedy drama film directed by Rob Reiner it stars Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman in the lead roles.

The story begins when Carter Chambers a working class man played by Freeman and Edward Cole a billionaire hospital magnate played by Nicholson meet for the first time when they are paired in the same room, in a hospital owned by Cole.

Both of them have been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. They become friends as they undergo treatment. Chambers is a gifted amateur historian and family man who had wanted to become a history professor in his youth.

However, he says fate had not allowed it as he had been "black, broke, and with a baby on the way"; therefore he never rose above his status as a mechanic. Edward is a four-time divorced health-care tycoon and cultured loner who enjoys nothing more than tormenting his personal aid Thomas.

Chambers begins writing a "bucket list", or things to do before he "kicks the bucket" as the expression goes to say 'dies'. After hearing he has less than a year, Chambers throws out the list. Cole finds it the next morning and urges Chambers to do everything on the list, and offers to finance the trip for both of them.

Chambers agrees, and despite the protests of his wife, Cole and Chambers begin their trip around-the-world. Just some of the things they do include skydiving flying over the North Pole, visit the Taj Mahal, India, ride motorcycles on the Great Wall of China.

Atop the Great Pyramid, they confide about faith and family, revealing that Chambers has long been feeling less in love with his wife. Cole is deeply hurt by his estrangement from his only daughter, who disowned him after he drove away her abusive husband.

On the drive back, Chambers tries to reunite Cole with his daughter. Cole, however, feels Chambers has breached his trust and angrily storms off. Chambers returns home to his wife, children, and grandchildren where they have a nice family dinner telling stories and sharing jokes while Cole stays home eating dinner alone. The family reunion is cut short because Chambers suffers a seizure and is rushed to the hospital.

Cole, who is in remission, visits Chambers and they share a few moments. Chambers insists Cole finish the bucket list without him. Chambers goes into surgery, but sadly does not make it through and passes away on the operating table. Cole finally attempts to reconcile with his daughter and she accepts him back into her life and introduces him to the granddaughter he never knew he had.

After greeting the little girl with a kiss on the cheek, Cole crosses "kiss the most beautiful girl in the world" off the bucket list. Cole delivers a eulogy at the funeral of his deceased friend and explains that he and Chambers had been complete strangers, but the last three months of his friend's life were the best three months of his.

And then he crosses off "help a complete stranger for the good" from the bucket list. The final scene reveals something that is truly touching as in death their final item on the bucket list is achieved with the help of Cole's longsuffering dutiful valet.