Movie Review: Thank You for Smoking

I’ve been wanting to see this movie for awhile now, since I enjoyed the book by Christopher Buckley. It’s a satire about a tobacco lobbyist, Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart). Nick is actually a charming guy. He’s divorced, with one son. He sees his son on weekends, but wants to spend more time with him. He even speaks at his son’s career day, much to his son’s embarrassment. When a little girl in the class tells him that her mother said that cigarettes can kill you, he says, “Is your mommy a doctor?”

Nick is good at his job because he can talk his way out of anything. On the Joan Lunden show, sitting next to a 15-year-old dying of lung cancer, he asks the audience how the smoking industry could possibly profit from this kid’s death. “The smoking industry wants to keep this kid alive and smoking,” he points out.

Once a week, Nick gets together with fellow MOD-squad members (Merchants of Death), which consist of an alcohol lobbyist and a gun lobbyist. At one point (one of the funniest in the movie) they actually get into an argument over whose product kills the most people. The discussion was brought on by an attempt on Nick’s life. Nick wins the argument, but assures his friends that he is sure they are “deserving of vigilante justice.”

Nick’s weak points are his son and a beautiful journalist named Heather (Katie Holmes). He gets personally involved with the journalist and tells her a few things he shouldn’t, with devastating results. The moral pangs that he gets from his job seem to be mostly due to his son. For example, at one point he takes a trip to Hollywood to meet with a studio mogul (played by Rob Lowe) to discuss cigarette product placement in the movies and makes a side trip to an embittered Marlboro Man, now dying, to give him a “gift” of a whole lot of money. Nick brings his son along on the trip, and it’s rather awkward having him there and having to explain things to him.

The movie is a pretty good satire. It’s definitely dark humor, but entertaining.