'Easy, Bill, you'll give yourself a heart attack and ruin my vacation.' 
Rating: Null/10 (22 January 2004)

This movie, 'Meet Joe Black, and a 1934 movie, 'Death Takes a Holiday', are both based on (or inspired by...) the stage play. The 'Ultimate' DVD set I got from my public library has two disks, one with the almost 3-hour 'Meet Joe Black' movie and the other with the barely 80 minutes 1934 'Death Takes A Holiday' movie. So I didn't have to move very far from my home theater to see both of them. They are distinctly different, and end quite differently, but both are enjoyable. I will write a separate review of the 1934 movie. Anthony Hopkins and Brad Pitt occupy the main roles, and Hopkins is especially effective as the business man about to turn 65 and visited by this unlikely guest. It is a bit slow in spots, spending too much time on intimate scenes between Forlani and Pitt, and also too much time getting through the final scenes, but overall a very watchable if overly long movie.
SPOILERS, SPOILERS, SPOILERS are contained in the remaining comments, don't read any further, OK??
Bill (Hopkins)is almost 65 and is experiencing a heart attack, when 'death' (Brad Pitt) shows up, gets named 'Joe Black', wants a holiday, and asks Bill to be his guide of sorts. In return, Bill will not die until after he has turned 65, has a chance to really say farewell to all his family and friends, and prepare for his fate. 'Death' occupies the body of the young man that Bill's doctor daughter Susan (Forlani) had met briefly in a coffee shop, but who was killed right after she turned a corner, not seeing any of it.
Joe is at Bill's side everywhere, to the consternation of Drew, the business hotshot that is trying to marry Susan, and at the same time engineer a merger which would enrich him personally but destroy the business that Bill had put together over the years. Things are complicated when Joe and Susan fall in love, she doesn't know who he really is, Bill knows this is not good for Susan. Drew convinces the board to fire Bill, but at Bill's birthday party he tricks Drew into admiting his plan to the board over a speaker phone, to set things right. Joe, posing as an IRS agent, tells Drew, 'death and taxes' as Drew is forced to resign to avoid prosecution, echoing a line Drew told to Joe early in the movie. As midnight approaches, Joe and Bill walk together over an arched walk, Bills time is up, Joe's holiday is ending. But Joe apparently comes back, but it isn't Joe anymore, it is the young man that Susan had met in the coffee shop. 'Death' decided it wasn't his time, so gave him back to Susan, as a gesture of his love for her, instead of taking Susan with him.