Thank You For Smoking "B+"

Smoking Is Cool . . . .

Ah, spin. What a wonderful art. It takes a truly special person to completely and wholly manipulate what others say, without guilt, without remorse.

In fact, a “spin doctor” in the 21st Century is one of the most sophisticated professions and certainly one of the most lucrative. Lobbyists in Washington are full of these pros, they lobby our elected officials with everything from oil, and guns to tobacco and cotton. Wow.

Anyway, that what this very good comedy is about. Yes, “Thank You for Smoking” is a comedy about a lobbyist for the tobacco industry. It’s also one of the best social satires in many years.

The title character of Nick Naylor (get it?) is played beautifully by Aaron Eckhart who excels in portraying characters who are at the same time repulsive but ooze charm. The rest of the cast such as Robert Duvall (sufficiently scary), Maria Bello (doesn’t take her clothes off, thank god), Katie Holmes (finally plays a woman, not a girl), Cameron Bright (still creepy) and William H. Macy (excellent as always) all do wonderfully in their roles.

The story blurs the lines between who we think are the good guys and the bad guys. It is in essence saying that everyone has their own agenda, whether that’s just to put food on the table and pay the mortgage or to leave a legacy behind. Everyone in this movie has an agenda and they all manipulate each other so smoothly and perfectly that it’s hard to know who to root for. This my friends is the world we live in. Never knowing who the “good guy” is, who is manipulating us (until it’s too late) and who actually has our best interests in mind. That’s why people should always look at both sides of an argument and make up their own minds and not be led around like sheep.

One of my favorite scenes in the movie comes early on when Nick is on Sally Jesse Raphael with members of various groups that want to ban smoking and “cancer boy”. Everyone hates him including the audience and the host but within moments he puts on an amazing “spin” and convinces everyone not only is he the good guy but all the groups are bad! This really shows the power of well crafted words and great acting that so easy influences the uneducated and uninformed mass population.

See this film and laugh but also think about it. If you think that something like this could never happen, think again, it already does.