Thank You For Smoking
Year: | 2006 |
Production Co: | Room 9 Productions |
Studio: | Fox Searchlight |
Director: | Jason Reitman |
Writer: | Jason Reitman |
Cast: | Aaron Eckhart, Katie holmes, J J Simmons, Robert Duvall, Maria Bello, David Koechner, Cameron Bright, Sam Elliot, Rob Lowe, William H Macy |
With only the gift of the gab on his side, Nick has a seemingly impossible task ahead of him but he pulls it off with such cheeky confidence he's impossible not to like even though he's the most reprehensible character in the story.
Coming up against an eccentric Hollywood agent (Lowe), the original Marlboro Man (Elliot), a beautiful reporter gunning for the scoop of the century (Holmes), a senator baying for his blood (Macy) and various interest groups waging war all around him, Nick does it all with a smile and a glint in his eye, towing his impressionable son Joey (Bright) along for the ride.
With a cynical but loving eye, the movie is at its best giving you the hilarious inside dope on the people who defend killer corporations. Best of all are the regular lunches between Nick and his friends, alcohol lobby spokeswoman Polly (Bello) and gun lobby spinner Bobby (Koechner). After Nick receives a death threat, the sullen argument about how nobody would want to kill gun or alcohol lobbyists because their products don't kill nearly as many as cigarettes is the height of black comedy.
Plenty of laugh out loud moments throughout and a very sharp satire.