The Bucket List (2007)

(On TV, June 2015) I don’t often cry while watching movies, let alone slick soulless Hollywood comedies, but taking in a film about men dying of cancer days after attending a funeral for a friend who passed away from leukemia is asking for exceptions.  So it is that, uncharacteristically enough, I felt a few manly tears roll down my cheeks during the last few moments of The Bucket List, as I started contemplating life, death, legacies and whether it’s even possible to go gently into the night.  I really didn’t expect this from this film, which is as pre-packaged a glossy Hollywood comedy as it comes.  But we are creatures of circumstances, and for a few minutes I was able to let go of my usual analytical mind and just feel purely sad.  So it is that I’m not going to attempt to review The Bucket List itself: Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson each play to their strengths, and the result just short-circuited my logical circuits.  Given how deeply my departed friend was into movies (he was once nominated for a Genie screenwriting award), may this serves as a significant epitaph of sorts.