Jack Nicholson: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

And 5 That Sucked...

5. Edward Cole - The Bucket List

As mentioned in the intro, even when Jack Nicholson is phoning it in, he's still a formidable and entertaining presence, a trait which has probably helped him onto becoming one of the most popular actors of all-time - even when he's being basically himself, people are still happy to see the guy. Lucky for some!

Still, his turn in Rob Reiner's boringly schmaltzy The Bucket List, which teams him with fellow legend Morgan Freeman as two cancer patients who set out to fulfill their lifelong dreams before they kick the bucket, seems like a bit of a low point.

Which is to say, the script for The Bucket List is so bad that Nicholson doesn't seem capable of delivering his lines properly - almost as if he's reading them off of an autocue or for the first time. It doesn't help that the whole movie is cloyingly sentimental and treats cancer like something that can be "ignored" in favour of a good time and sky diving; there's a sense here that Nicholson just wanted to hang out with his buddy Morgan Freeman for a couple of months and The Bucket List gave him the excuse to do exactly that.

This film is best left avoided.