"Thank You For Smoking" is less about mocking Big Tobacco and the smarmy, white-teethed suits responsible for spreading its cancer sticks and more about mocking the whole culture of lobbying. As students living and putting up with the ups, downs, ins and outs of Washington, D.C. (some of you would probably kill your sister to be a lobbyist like the ones shown in this movie), "Thank You For Smoking" almost feels extra-special-relevant.
The movie is something of a heartwarming satire. The ominous Big Tobacco's whiz-kid lobbyist Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart), self-described as "the guy who always gets the girl - on crack," goes through a series of life-altering revelations as he realizes that his 12-year-old son is going to grow up thinking his dad essentially kills people. There's a particularly funny scene where Eckhart is a guest in his son's class and basically accuses a little girl's mom of being an un-credible source for saying "smoking kills."
Echkart's delivery is a big part of where the movie excels. He is charming and glib, part of what makes this movie's satirical elements so subtle. He spits out his pro-tobacco lines with just such a smirk that the whole tongue-in-cheek bit is seemingly lost but actually there the whole time. The viewer is constantly questioning whether or not director Jason Reitman is actually supporting the lobbyist's plight or really making a searing commentary on political correctness and American hypocrisy.
Eckhart is wonderfully appealing as Naylor and the rest of the cast is just as strong. Maria Bello and David Koechner are featured as part of Naylor's "MOD Squad," or "Merchants of Death." Bello plays a lobbyist for the alcohol industry and Koechner is positively hilarious as a pro-firearm lobbyist. The harbingers of cigarettes, guns and booze meet once a week to compare stories and war trophies as they crusade for society's vices.
Robert Duvall plays the southern aristocrat known as the Captain, basically representing the tobacco industry as a misguided whole. While Naylor prides himself on being a man of the people, the Captain is the one who puts him on his first private jet - he represents a lot of the schism that builds between Naylor and his career throughout the movie. Also wonderful is William H. Macy as Vermont Senator Ortolan Finistirre, complete with tweed jackets and thick white socks under Birkenstocks. He is the perfect stereotype of the liberal, New England senator that perpetually has a bill in circulation to fight Big Tobacco.
The only major casting flaw in "Thank You For Smoking" isn't sticking Adam Brody in there to be a snarky personal assistant at a consulting firm called EGO. Rather, it's putting Katie Holmes in as a hard-hitting journalist who's profiling Naylor but winds up in his bed instead. When she delivers the line,"I want to watch you on TV while I fuck you," one senses the last shreds of integrity leave the popular conception of journalism. One can't help but wonder, "Is that what she says to Tom Cruise?" Maybe it's writer bias, but Holmes is straight up irritating and practically unnecessary. Any random pretty face would have served the role much better.
Besides the Holmes downfall, "Thank You For Smoking" is still undeniably funny, fresh and entertaining. The editing is brilliant and the film feels original, despite bearing a striking topical resembles to, say, "Wag the Dog." Nevertheless, seeing political satires that take place in D.C. (there are too many inside jokes to even count) is always appealing and "Thank You For Smoking" does not disappoint.
