Film Reviews

Thank You for Smoking

• Rating:
• Director: Jason Reitman.
• Starring: Aaron Eckhart, Katie Holmes, Robert Duvall, William H. Macy.
• Details: US, 92mins, 15A.

Nick Naylor (Eckhart) has one of the toughest and most despised jobs in the world - he is a lobbyist for a giant tobacco company. Using his cheesy grin and twisted logic, he forces his nay-sayers to accept his point of view despite themselves and he truly revels in his occupation. However, when his son Joey (Cameron Bright) comes to stay, he is forced to look at his job through innocent eyes and begins to reflect on the damage he is doing. Meanwhile, tough on smoking Senator Finisterre (Macy) is obsessed with bringing Naylor down while nosy reporter Heather Holloway (Holmes) hopes to get the goods on him. Although it is one of the cleverest and funniest satires to be released this year, Thank You For Smoking's message is never lost amongst the jokes (and there are quite a few of them) and still manages to steer clear of any preachy overtones. How this is done is down to writer-director Jason Reitman who weaves a bright and intelligent script that bounces off witty one-liners into tragedy and back again. Eckhart, who previously got hearts racing as Erin Brockovich's biker boyfriend, has impressed before as the evil incarnate Chad in In The Company Of Men and is brilliantly cast as Naylor; with grin wide enough to accommodate a bus and a chin that you could ski down, Eckhart embodies the role of a smarmy tobacco spokesman perfectly and creates an emotional distance between Naylor the lobbyist and Naylor the person. With Rob Lowe in a odd film producer role and Sam Elliot as the original Marlboro man now suffering from lung cancer, Thank You For Smoking boasts an impressive roll call of name actors in small roles without ever overshadowing the witty story.

Review by Gavin Burke