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Back Shelf Beauties
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Thank You For Smoking It's only March, but Thank You For Smoking might be one of the best movies you see all year in 2006. Frankly, it's so good I secretly wish Fox Searchlight would have held off on releasing it until November, when it would be in the Oscar race. Thank You For Smoking is one of the funniest, most intelligent satires to come out of Hollywood in years, and it assaults everyone in its path. Set in the early 90's, Aaron Eckhart stars as Nick Naylor - the lead lobbyist and spokesperson for big tobacco. His job is to protect the industry in the face of lawsuits and legislative attacks, which are mounting by the day and causing the tobacco companies to worry about their future. Known around Washington, DC as one of the smoothest operators in town, Nick even is being profiled by local newspaper reporter Heather Holloway (Katie Holmes), who strikes up a steamy relationship with her subject. Just as Nick seems to be moving up the ladder at work, on the precipice of wonky DC-based fame, having great "relations" with a hot babe, and gaining the favor of the tobacco industry's godfather, The Captain (Robert Duvall), his world is about to come crashing down. Can Nick win back his supporters and return to glory? Have his enemies finally gotten the best of him? Will his son, Joey (Cameron "I got into a bath tub with Nicole Kidman once, so Waffle is super jealous" Bright) still idolize him? Thank You For Smoking is sure to make you laugh all the way from beginning to end whether you are a DC policy wonk, conservative, liberal, or someone who views politics as the part of the news you try to avoid until they start talking about the sports and weather. Writer/director Jason Reitman (based on the novel by Christopher Buckley) has created a wild romp centered on a fascinatingly egotistical powerbroker too in love with his own abilities, and oblivious to his shortcomings. It's a formula for tragedy and comeuppance that is compelling to watch, along with Nick's attempt at a comeback, which is even more interesting and thrilling. Making the movie better, that personal story finds itself wrapped in the middle of a fantastic satire with the types of character anyone with a shred of knowledge about politics will find familiar and true. Reitman attacks the entire system as silly, corrupt and driven by anything but nobility and concern for the common man as we the worst in everyone from a tobacco industry portrayed as willing to mislead the public to keep selling its products to the anti-smoking jihad as health Nazis willing to go to any extreme to control individual behavior in their assault on a legal product (even when others are just as dangerous) to Hollywood bigwigs looking to do anything to make a few extra bucks and look cool. All behavior is taken to the extreme for our comical benefit as Nick ends up in the middle of some hair raising situations, including a kidnapping, a confrontation with the tobacco industry's leading symbol (wonderfully played by Sam Elliott), and finding himself as the man in the middle of a political and personal firestorm when his cockiness catches up to him. Reitman makes every scene as absurd as possible, even when they have an air of truth to them, and he has the right leading man to take us through this roller coaster of a movie. Thank You For Smoking is a great movie because Eckhart gives himself over to the character. Never pulling a punch, and making us believe Nick buys his own boloney more than his impressionable son, Eckhart is smooth, with a magical twinkle in his eye that sucks you in. He is a powerfully charismatic and appealing character, even as you start to realize Nick dropped his moral compass years ago, then smashed it with his Gucci shoes. Eckhart has great comedic timing, gives Nick amazing energy and excels as the layers of cool start to get peeled away from Nick's outer shell, and everything he desires is doomed. The rest of the cast is pretty good, too. William H. Macy is brilliant as the Vermont Senator who has built himself a national following by attacking the smoking industry, and Todd Louiso shines as his staff lackey, Ron Goode - a mealy mouth wimp of a guy who always seems to be a step behind the rest of the fight. Rob Lowe makes a great appearance as a Hollywood producer (in a sequence of scenes proving Reitman can lampoon his own world just as well as Washington, DC), but the best supporting performances come from Maria Bello, as alcohol lobbyist Polly Bailey, and David Koechner, as gun rights lobbyist Bobby Jay Bliss, as their characters meet with Nick as part of a weekly lunch get together of the M.O.D. Squad (Merchants of Death Squad). Reitman's most biting material is on display in these meeting, where each lobbyist airs their respective troubles with recent studies about subjects that elicit responses and strategies sure to make you laugh with the best deadpan deliveries in movies today, and dialogue so honest and calculating, you will be in shock. Finally, I know many of you have heard about the "steamy" sex scene between Holmes and Eckhart, but you'll see more risqué action on a daytime soap opera. Keeping with the farcical tone, Reitman makes the sex scene funny rather than hot. No nudity is on display, but it is another way for us to learn about Nick's selfishness. Thank You For Smoking is one of those rare political satires with some intelligence, a true grasp on how politics in DC works, and a desire to skewer everyone. 4 Waffles (Out Of 4) Copyright 2006 - WaffleMovies.com
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