Based on the 1994 bestselling novel by Christopher Buckley (adapted for the screen and directed by Jason Reitman), Thank You for Smoking follows Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart), a lobbyist for the tobacco industry (he’s the vice-president of the Academy of Tobacco Studies), from an appearance on a TV-talk show, where he uses his charm and rhetorical skills to neutralize anti-tobacco opponents, back to his office, where his overbearing boss, BR (J.K. Simmons), gives him an earful for offering to spend seemingly exorbitant amounts on a public campaign to prevent teen smoking. Not surprisingly, Nick is divorced. Nick shares custody of his son, Joey (Cameron Bright) with his ex-wife, Jill (Kim Dickens). Nick visits Joey’s elementary school to give a brief presentation about what he does. His slick amorality and fast wit impress the students, but leave Joey distressed.

Nick stops in for weekly meeting with Polly Bailey (Maria Bello), a lobbyist for the alcohol industry, and Bobby Jay Bliss (David Koechner), a lobbyist for the firearms industry. The group calls itself the “MOD squad” (MOD is an acronym, but what it stands for is better left for audiences to discover on their own, since it’s a blackly comic payoff). The MOD squad commiserates and frets about the latest setbacks suffered by their respective industries, but Nick seems immune to doubt or inner conflict. The tobacco industry, however, faces its most difficult challenge yet, congressional hearings chaired by an ambitious, anti-tobacco senator from Vermont, Ortolan Finistirre (William H. Macy).

Constantly on the move, Nick moves from a staff meeting with BR and the other tobacco lobbyists to an offsite meeting with the Captain (Robert Duvall), the primary backer for the Academy of Tobacco Studies. Nick’s asked to travel to Hollywood, where he meets with a high-powered talent agent, Jeff Megall (Rob Lowe), and negotiate the ultimate in product placement, the return of cigarette smoking to the film industry (according to Megall, smoking on film is only permitted for Russians, Arabs, and villains, or RAV for short). Hoping to spend quality time with his son, Nick takes him to the meeting with Megall and, later, on a last-minute errand for the Captain that involves Lorne Lutch (Sam Elliott), the once-upon-a-time Marlboro Man who, not coincidentally, is dying of lung cancer.

Nick’s life becomes further complicated when he meets a young, attractive reporter, Heather Holloway (Katie Holmes). With the Hollywood deal almost in place, the congressional hearings about to begin, and his relationship with his son smoothed out, Nick is all but primed for a fall. Nick's waning fortunes send him onto the obligatory road of self-examination. As narrative templates go, Thank You for Smoking follows the “rise-fall-redemption” formula for amoral characters in American film (e.g., Andrew Niccol’s 2005 film about an arms dealer, Lord of War).

That Thank You for Smoking is funny, sharp, incisive, and even occasionally insightful, especially as it takes down the “culture of spin” Nick and his cohorts create on a daily basis, is practically a given. Reitman and Buckley take satirical swipes at negligent, profit-driven tobacco companies, their enablers in the lobbying industry who, once-upon-a-time, refused to accept independent health studies on tobacco use, and puritanical, egotistical politicians eager to make a name for themselves. All are, at least in this reviewer’s opinion, fitting subjects for satire (although a U.S. Congress that spent decades subsiding the tobacco industry in exchange for campaign contributions is curiously absent as a target of Reitman and Buckley’s wrath).

Reitman tries but fails to overcome the subject matter's datedness, as he acknowledges late in the film when he inserts video footage of the multibillion settlement against the tobacco industry. As such, Thank You For Smoking takes place in a recognizably near past and not the present (the best satire depends on topicality for its effectiveness, even if one of the consequences is that it dates quickly). Ultimately, the targets of Reitman’s satire aren’t quite as fresh and compelling as Christopher Buckley, writing in the early 1990s, originally intended. In addition, Buckley’s libertarian leanings leave Thank You for Smoking with only a minimally satisfactory payoff (culminating, as expected, at the congressional hearings). Buckley’s response to the questions posed at the hearing simplifies a complex subject where, perhaps, a more open-ended answer would have made more sense (or at least one that takes communitarian concerns into account).

Even though he's a first-time director (with, albeit, previous experience directing shorts and television commercials), Reitman proves he has a keen, instinctive sense of rhythm and pacing. Whether a function of the seasoned acting pros, or Reitman's direction of the actors, or a combination of the two, the actors give uniformly excellent performances. The performances rarely venture veer into caricature, with the exception of J.K. Simmons’ broad, blustery turn as Nick’s F-bomb spewing boss and Cameron Bright as Nick’s son, Joey, who, to be fair, is often saddled with dialogue that no adolescent would ever utter, even one as presumably smart and clever as Nick’s son.

© Mel Valentin, 24th March, 2006