The Bucket List

The Bucket List is a feel-good film about death, a sitcom about mortality, "Ikiru" for meatheads. It's also a picture about two cancer patients confronting reality, and deciding how they want to spend their presumed last days, that has not an ounce of reality about it. For all these reasons, along with the star power of Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, this refitting of the grumpy old men genre stands a good chance of becoming director Rob Reiner's first hit since the mid-'90s, even though its prevailing sensibility will eventually make it look more at home on small screens.