Thank You For Smoking [DVD] [2005]

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As one of the funniest films released in 2006, Thank You for Smoking works precisely because it shouldn’t. Its protagonist is Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart), a smooth-talking spokesman for the American tobacco industry, and therefore one of the 21st Century’s most demonised men. From his gelled hair to his perfect teeth, he’s all slick and smarmy charm, though crucially, it’s his self-awareness that keeps him from degenerating into a completely amoral character. Naylor genuinely loves his teenaged son, Joey (Cameron Bright), and he’s determined to be a good role model. However, that’s not such an easy feat when the press and a US Senator are baying for your blood, and your own best friends are the self-styled M.O.D. (Merchants of Death) Squad (one is a gun lobbyist, the other does the same for alcohol).

Thank You for Smoking is a satire, but director / screenwriter Jason Reitman is clever enough to play it straight. And the supporting cast are, as a whole, superb, from William H Macy’s liberal, headline-grabbing Senator to Katie Holmes’s two-faced journalist. But it’s Eckhart’s performance as the charismatic Nick Naylor that is so convincing. By the end of the film, he manages to build sympathy not just for himself, but for the American tobacco industry--and that’s no mean feat for Hollywood, particularly as non-smoking laws mean that, throughout the entirety of Thank You for Smoking, nobody is seen smoking a cigarette. --Ted Kord