The best comes last

Movie
German title	The best comes last
Original title	The Bucket List
Country of production	United States
original language	English
Publishing year	2007
length	approx. 93 minutes
Age rating	FSK 0 ; JMK 6
Rod
Director	Rob Reiner
script	Justin Zackham
production	Alan Greisman ; Neil Meron ; Rob Reiner ; Craig Zadan
music	Marc Shaiman
camera	John Schwartzman
cut	Robert Leighton
occupation
	Jack Nicholson : Edward Cole; Morgan Freeman : Carter Chambers; Sean Hayes : Thomas; Beverly Todd : Virginia Chambers; Rob Morrow : Dr. Hollins; Alfonso Freeman : Roger Chambers; Rowena King : Angelica; Annton Berry junior : Kai; Verda Bridges : Chandra; Destiny Brownridge : Maya; Brian Copeland : Lee; Ian Anthony Dale : Instructor; Jennifer DeFrancisco : Emily; Angela Gardner : Manager; Noel Guglielmi : Mechanic;

The best comes for last (original title: The Bucket List ) is a tragic comedy by director Rob Reiner from 2007 . The main roles were played by Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman .

action

The incredulous, amoral white clinic owner and billionaire Edward Cole and the highly educated black auto mechanic Carter Chambers both have cancer . Cole has been married four times and has one daughter. Chambers once wanted to become a history professor, but the financial circumstances of his future wife's sudden pregnancy forced him to change his career goal.

Both men are in the same room in a hospital that belongs to Cole. Both have to endure various cancer treatments (surgery and chemotherapy ) and become friends because of their fate despite their opposites. Then both learn that they only have six to twelve months to live.

Chambers begins making a list of the things he wants to do in his life before he gives up the spoon (the so-called "spoon list"). The idea for this comes from the time he was studying philosophy, when he was given this task as an exercise in a lecture. But after he has noted a few points, he loses the courage to actually put them into practice, so he crumples the list and throws it on the floor. Cole finds Chambers' list, makes fun of him a little because he finds its points too harmless and not very material, but basically makes friends with the idea. He begins adding his own items to the list and convinces Chambers to put it into practice. Ultimately, they put together a list ("bucket list") that contains a whole range of different items, including jumping with a parachute , driving a Shelby Mustang , seeing the pyramids and the Taj Mahal , going on big game hunting, something "majestic" experience (this means Mount Everest ), do something good for a stranger, laugh so hard until you cry, kiss the most beautiful girl in the world and so on.

Although Chambers and his wife quarrel because she would rather see him in the family circle or in the further fight against cancer, Chambers goes on a journey with Cole. In Cole's private jet, the two fly around the world with Cole's assistant and “work” off the individual items on the list. The two cross off every completed point from the list.

During the trip, the two get to know each other better. Chambers finds out that Cole has fallen out with his daughter. Cole tells him about the abuse the husband did to his daughter. He also tells him how he "took care" (alluding to hired thugs) to get the husband to leave his daughter. However, Cole never forgave the incident, which is clearly a burden for him.

Conversely, Cole learns from Chambers that he has never slept with any woman other than his wife and that his love for his wife seems to have died out. In both of them there is a growing desire to help the other with their problems. Cole sends Chambers in Hong Kong, a young black call girl to seduce him. But Chambers realizes that he still loves his wife and breaks off the trip. For his part, at the end of the trip, Chambers tries to bring Cole together with his daughter, whereupon the two fall out.

How different the two men are becomes apparent after their return: While Chambers is celebrating a big reunion with his entire family in the style of an American Thanksgiving Day and leading a happy life with his family, Cole comes back to his cold, sterile house where no one is waiting for him.

After family dinner, Chambers and his wife plan to spend a night together to celebrate their rediscovered love when Chambers collapses. At the hospital it turns out that more metastases have formed in his brain. Cole visits him at the bedside and the two make up. Cole receives a letter from Virginia, Chambers' wife. Chambers asks him to complete the list on his own before his operation. An article that Chambers gives Cole also mentions the making of the Kopi Luwak coffee that Cole loves. Since he did not know that these were beans secreted by a crawling cat, they both have to laugh until they cry - and can thus cross another item off the list.

While Chambers is operated on again, which he does not survive, Cole Chambers' last wish, which he had formulated in the letter, fulfilled: He should be reconciled with his daughter. His daughter takes him in lovingly and he gets to know his granddaughter, whom he kisses; then he ticks off the item “kiss the most beautiful girl in the world”. In the end, both of them found what is most important in life: love. At Chambers' funeral, Cole gives a touching speech and mentions that Chambers was a complete stranger to him just a few months ago, whereupon he removes the item "do something good for a stranger" from the list.

The film ends with the story that Cole died at the age of 81: "Eyes closed, but heart opened." So it seems that Cole overcame cancer (or at least delayed it) by finding happiness in his life again. Cole's assistant Matthew, Cole only called Tom or Thomas, then fulfills Cole's last wish and carries his ashes in a coffee can to the summit of the Himalayan mountains, where Chambers' ashes are already resting in a coffee can, as Carter Chambers loved instant coffee all his life. It was the last wish of the two men to climb the summit of the Himalayas and "experience something majestic" - due to the bad weather on their trip, they had not been able to experience it themselves. Finally, Matthew crosses this last point off the list and puts the list along with the ashes of Cole next to the can with the ashes of Chambers.

backgrounds

Leading actor Jack Nicholson at the film premiere of The Best For Last

The original title The Bucket List refers to the English phrase "to kick the bucket", which colloquially means to give up the spoon, to bite into the grass . In common Anglo-Saxon parlance, a bucket list is a list on which you enumerate everything you would like to do before the end of your life. The term bucket list was in German synchronization with spoon list translated and has at least since incorporated in the German language found.

Carter's son Roger Chambers is played in the film by Alfonso Freeman, the actual son of Morgan Freeman .
In the film there are allusions to the books "A Lifetime" (Original title: The Time of Your Life ) by William Saroyan and the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri .
The film premiered on December 16, 2007 in Hollywood , was released in selected cinemas in the US on December 25, 2007, and was widely released in US cinemas on January 11, 2008. The German theatrical release followed on January 24, 2008.
With box office earnings of 19.4 million US dollars on the opening weekend, the film reached number 1 on the US box office.

Reviews

Todd McCarthy called the film a " sitcom about mortality" in Variety magazine . Thanks to the strength of the two main actors, it could become the director's first hit since the mid-1990s, although his “predominant emphasis on sensitivity” would make him more likely to be seen on television screens (“with the star power of Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman […] 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 ”).

Michael Rechtshaffen wrote in The Hollywood Reporter magazine that even Nicholson and Freeman were unable to bring this "dull" movie to life. The script gives the two Oscar winners too few opportunities.

Awards

John Mayer won an award in the 2009 Grammy Awards in the category of “ Best Male Vocal Performance - Pop ” with the song “Say” written for the film . The German Film and Media Evaluation FBW in Wiesbaden awarded the film the title valuable .