Thank You for Smoking - DVD Review
Posted on
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
by Gary A. Ballard
Making a movie about a tobacco lobbyist as a sympathetic figure is a risky venture, and few creative teams would have the chops to pull it off. Harder still is the task of finding an actor who can inject such a reviled figure with not only humor, but humanity as well. The makers of Thank You For Smoking have managed to do both with panache, producing one of the funniest and most thought-provoking movies of 2006.
Written and directed by Jason Reitman (yes, son of Ghostbusters' Ivan Reitman) from the novel by Chris Buckley (son of political commentator William F. Buckley), Thank You for Smoking is a fantastic combination of cerebral satire and below-the-belt social criticism. It follows the life of Nick Naylor, a lobbyist for the Academy of Tobacco Studies, the tobacco industry-funded think tank which produced "research" on smoking that favored the tobacco industry. As Naylor tells us in the beginning, the Academy is really a mouthpiece for tobacco industry lies, a PR factory for debunking the health concerns of anti-smoking critics. Nick is their main go-to guy, the bullshitter's bullshitter, a man who could sell hot coffee in hell and have his customers begging for more.
Played with consummate poise by a smarmy Aaron Eckhart, Naylor's character is hilariously witty. He's the character the audience should hate, yet he's instantly likeable and as the story goes on, no matter the egregious lies he manufactures, the viewer can't help but feel empathy with Naylor. He makes nice with the "Cancer Boy" on the Joan Lunden show, irritates the hell out of an anti-smoking Congressman played by William H. Macy, and even teaches his own son about the intricacies of winning an argument by changing the nature of the argument in mid-sentence. Watching his dissection of the "why chocolate is better than vanilla for ice cream" argument, I couldn't help but be reminded of FoxNews and neocon argumentative tactics that allow a politician to equate Iraq with Al-Qaeda despite never saying the two were connected at all.
The entire cast deserves mention for their performances. The entire cast plays their parts perfectly, including Robert Duvall, J.K. Simmons, Cameron Bright, Macy and even Katie Holmes. Those sickened by Holmes' Scientology-fueled media overexposure will be particularly pleased by her character's arc. I have to give special note to Maria Bello and David Koechner for their turns as alcohol and firearms lobbyists respectively. Together with Naylor, they make up the Mod Squad (for Merchants of Death). Their weekly lunch meetings are a darkly amusing game of oneupmanship, each trying to outdo the other by comparing controversies their industry's face. Rob Lowe is also worth mentioning, despite his dearth of screen time. His Asian-obsessed movie agent who speaks with careful aloofness about product placement of cigarettes in movies is on par with Eckhart's Naylor.
Thank You for Smoking is not for the easily offended. The tobacco controversy is a topic only slightly less incendiary as the abortion debate, and yet the cast and crew handle it with a deft wit. Only the most humorless of oversensitive twits could not find humor in this movie. Reitman's direction is subtle yet effective. His use of almost sepia toned film stock in scenes at the Academy of Tobacco Studies is just one example of the wit he injects into the film with almost subliminal skill. This movie deserves Oscar attention, though I'm almost positive it won't get such recognition. No matter what Hollywood's elite think of it, this movie deserves a rental.
Written and directed by Jason Reitman (yes, son of Ghostbusters' Ivan Reitman) from the novel by Chris Buckley (son of political commentator William F. Buckley), Thank You for Smoking is a fantastic combination of cerebral satire and below-the-belt social criticism. It follows the life of Nick Naylor, a lobbyist for the Academy of Tobacco Studies, the tobacco industry-funded think tank which produced "research" on smoking that favored the tobacco industry. As Naylor tells us in the beginning, the Academy is really a mouthpiece for tobacco industry lies, a PR factory for debunking the health concerns of anti-smoking critics. Nick is their main go-to guy, the bullshitter's bullshitter, a man who could sell hot coffee in hell and have his customers begging for more.
Played with consummate poise by a smarmy Aaron Eckhart, Naylor's character is hilariously witty. He's the character the audience should hate, yet he's instantly likeable and as the story goes on, no matter the egregious lies he manufactures, the viewer can't help but feel empathy with Naylor. He makes nice with the "Cancer Boy" on the Joan Lunden show, irritates the hell out of an anti-smoking Congressman played by William H. Macy, and even teaches his own son about the intricacies of winning an argument by changing the nature of the argument in mid-sentence. Watching his dissection of the "why chocolate is better than vanilla for ice cream" argument, I couldn't help but be reminded of FoxNews and neocon argumentative tactics that allow a politician to equate Iraq with Al-Qaeda despite never saying the two were connected at all.
The entire cast deserves mention for their performances. The entire cast plays their parts perfectly, including Robert Duvall, J.K. Simmons, Cameron Bright, Macy and even Katie Holmes. Those sickened by Holmes' Scientology-fueled media overexposure will be particularly pleased by her character's arc. I have to give special note to Maria Bello and David Koechner for their turns as alcohol and firearms lobbyists respectively. Together with Naylor, they make up the Mod Squad (for Merchants of Death). Their weekly lunch meetings are a darkly amusing game of oneupmanship, each trying to outdo the other by comparing controversies their industry's face. Rob Lowe is also worth mentioning, despite his dearth of screen time. His Asian-obsessed movie agent who speaks with careful aloofness about product placement of cigarettes in movies is on par with Eckhart's Naylor.
Thank You for Smoking is not for the easily offended. The tobacco controversy is a topic only slightly less incendiary as the abortion debate, and yet the cast and crew handle it with a deft wit. Only the most humorless of oversensitive twits could not find humor in this movie. Reitman's direction is subtle yet effective. His use of almost sepia toned film stock in scenes at the Academy of Tobacco Studies is just one example of the wit he injects into the film with almost subliminal skill. This movie deserves Oscar attention, though I'm almost positive it won't get such recognition. No matter what Hollywood's elite think of it, this movie deserves a rental.
posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 4:08 PM
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