Movie Review: Thank You For Smoking

Man what a great movie this was. Here’s a plot summary by Jim Beaver at IMDB (again).

Tobacco industry lobbyist Nick Naylor has a seemingly impossible task: promoting cigarette smoking in a time when the health hazards of the activity have become too plain to ignore. Nick, however, revels in his job, using argument and twisted logic to place, as often as not, his clients in the positions of either altruistic do-gooders or victims. Nick’s son Joey needs to understand and respect his dad’s philosophy, and Nick works hard to respond to that need without compromising his lack of values. When a beautiful news reporter betrays Nick’s sexually-achieved trust, his world seems in danger of collapsing. But there’s always one more coffin nail in Nick’s pack.

The movie was pretty much driven by Naylor, played by relatively unknown Aaron Eckhart. Eckhart does an excellent job as the seemingly untouchable smooth talking spinmaster. Very few scenes in the movie go without him, and he provides the narration to the movie as well. The cast is rounded out by some great character actors, including J.K. Simmons (Spiderman’s J. Jonah Jameson, who to me will never sound right unless he’s voiced by Ed Asner, as in the cartoon series) as Nick’s direct boss, Robert Duvall as The Captain, an aging and possibly not-altogether there big tobacco executive, William H. Macy (Fargo, State and Main) as a liberal senator with a vendetta against the cigarette companies and Naylor in particular, Sam Elliot (who is awesome in pretty much everything he does) as the emphysema-ridden Marloboro Man, and Rob Lowe (The West Wing, Tommy Boy) as a Japan-obsessed Hollywood heavy.

Visually, the movie is fantastic. They hired a great team of graphic designers to put the movie together, the title credits alone had me giggling with glee. Macy’s character wants a government mandated skull and crossbones with the word “poison” underneath put on every pack of cigarettes; the unspoken problem with this is that the logo looks really cool. There’s lots of cool little signs and graphics throughout the movie. The soundtrack (iTunes link) is a mix of old songs from the forties, fifties, and sixties about smoking and cigarettes, and the movie’s own score.

The movie is a look into the world of lobbyists, and particular the Merchants of Death (Naylor for the tobacco industry, and his two friends that represent the liquor industry and the firearms industry). At no point does it really portray big tobacco in a firmly positive light, instead skirting the issue much like the tobacco lobby itself. Much of the movie espouses a vaguely libertarian position that it is up to each of us to make the decision to smoke or not to smoke.

One thing about the movie that I found absolutely fantastic was a big plot twist that happens about halfway through the movie. In the push to get movies to the coveted number one spot, studios reveal pretty much everything about the movie in the advertising push. I’ve always thought that it would be much better to be surprised by what’s going to happen. However, this particular plot twist wasn’t revealed in the promotion of the movie. Which I think is great. That, in combination with the awesomeness of the rest of the movie, means I give it four stars. Worth a buy.

Get the trailer here.

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