Director: Jason Reitmann
Release Date: 14 April 2006
Running Time: 92 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Editor’s Rating: 4 out of 4 stars. This movie is smokin’. (Please stop throwing things, I know it was a bad joke. It’s the internet. The only thing you’re breaking is your monitor.)

Alec Baldwin is one of the most remembered actors from a movie called Glengarry Glen Ross. In it, he plays a cold and unforgiving real estate salesman, tasked with motivating a lackluster sales team out of a slump. He’s fast, sharp-talking, and abusive: a drill sergeant for ReMax. This mentality brings us right to the heart of Thank You For Smoking. You sell. Disregard everything else.

Thankfully, this film wasn’t written by David Mamet or fronted by Alec Baldwin. Instead, we get Aaron Eckhart playing Nick Naylor, the Vice President of the Academy of Tobacco Studies, a scientific research institute funded by big tobacco with the sole purpose of spinning public opinion in favor of cigarettes. And Nick Naylor is the guy who goes on TV and spouts all their findings. The thing is - he loves his job. Like Baldwin’s character, Naylor is the consummate salesman. Except where Baldwin’s character is a drill sergeant, Naylor shows us what Baldwin does that makes him so successful - he wins arguments. Whether it’s a kid with cancer or a United States Senator with a grudge, Naylor always tells us his audience something they can all agree with, no matter what the truth may be. And that’s only part of what makes this film so funny.

The rest of the cast features the ubiquitous and awesome J.K. Simmons as Naylor’s boss, B.R., a no-nonsense leader of men whose job is much more similar to Baldwin’s, yet not as vital, He’s got a serious case of barracks-mouth, and that’s always one of the things that Simmons can pull of so convincingly and enjoyably. It’s a pleasure to hear him yell profanities at the top of his lungs, it really is. Robert Duvall is his boss, known only as The Captain, a man with deep old-money roots and the weariness of a man who has upheld an industry for a lifetime, yet feels he has nothing to show for it. Katie Holmes is a bit of a femme-fatale with Eckhart’s character in the movie, pulling off a very sexy performance. David Koechner and Maria Bello play great supporting roles as Naylor’s only friends - they too are the talking heads of their own respective lobbying groups, Koechner of guns, Bello of alcohol.

This movie embraces the absurdity of the lobbying system wholeheartedly, and sticks them on a skewer. From frank talk about the suffering of children with cancer being anathema to big tobacco’s agenda- ”it’s in our best interests to keep him alive and smoking!” - to the sheer nonchalance topics like fetal alcohol syndrome and giving guns to minors are treated with, it’s a searing take on our nation’s dirtiest practices.

Yet, to balance all that flippant disregard to human life, the film gives us several moments of profound human interaction and practicality. Naylor truly loves his son, Joey, played by Cameron Bright, and for all the spin and twist he can put on the truth, Nick gives it straight out to him. Joey, who is written like an adult with a height deficiency rather than a kid who only spends the weekends with his father, We also get a very human scene between Nick and The Marlboro Man, played by Sam Elliott, whose choice at the conclusion of their scene together is a divisive one, but highlights the desperation of those who have nothing left.

The most unique feature this movie accentuates is the idea that the characters in it are not evil or good. Nick Naylor isn’t the Anti-Christ, he isn’t Josef Stalin, he’s just a guy doing his job. Yeah, it’s not a popular position and he’ll be the first one to tell you that. Even the people who oppose him. You know, the people who are supposed to be the heroes? They don’t care if they're saving the world or not, they just want to get re-elected. It’s a great sign of a satire when you end up liking no one but connecting with them all at some level. And that’s what this film does. Don’t bring the kids, but sit down and watch this. You’ll be glad you did.

**This movie is part of my personal collection, and I was not compensated for this review in any way.**