Thank You for Smoking: If only lobbyists had it so good
It was one of those movies that I looked forward to since the first day they released the trailer online. Friends and I had joked about the anti-smoking propaganda that assaults us on our TV screens (we were getting sick and tired of those over-dramatic, self-righteous masturbatory TRUTH commercials) and finally, here was a satirical comedy that spun the tables in another direction: Smoking isn’t so bad after all. We were sold before we even read the first reviews.
And indeed, one can’t help but gather even more hope with the opening credits, sporting retro-colored cigarette labels and a catchy tune (“Smoke, Smoke, Smoke That Cigarette,†by Tex Williams), a song that is both humorous and warm in its old-fashioned antique flavor. But unfortunately, once one dives into the actual meat of the movie itself, hope is bled dry as it moves along a conveyer belt of cinematic cliches and half-developed caricatures.
Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart) is a tobacco spin-doctor who works for the Academy of Tobacco Studies, a biased firm funded by various tobacco companies to try and downplay the health-risk factors of smoking. His role is idealistic in that rather than realistically portraying the various complications and major road-blocks that a lobbyist has to go through, he lives in a Lobbyist Utopia where he can magically offer any poorly-argued piece of spin for cigarettes and the opposition is reduced to a stuttering, speechless kid who couldn’t tell a rebuttal from his asshole. In fact, there are several such scenes in which this happens (you’d think that the anti-smoking brigade would get their act together and actually prepare themselves when they square off with Naylor). The worst of which is the scene where Naylor is a guest on Dennis Miller’s show (note to film producers: Dennis Miller isn’t funny), and Naylor has his first encounter with Senator Ortolan K. Finistirre (William H. Macy) who just got done tearing his aide a new one for not preparing himself for Naylor’s spin, and yet he falls into the same stammering, speechless trap.
Now, you might be wondering: What is a lobbyist? What does he do? How does one actually spin an argument? Never fear, dear reader, for this movie has provided these answers for you, in the form a convenient, bright-eyed little boy. Joey Naylor (Cameron Bright) is Nick Naylor’s son, and there’s never a doubt in your mind that he was cast for one reason: So Naylor’s character has a way of providing info-dumps to the audience. Why else would little Joey deliver such stilted, badly rehearsed questions like “What do you do for a living, Dad?” and “But isn’t that lying?” or my favorite: “What if you’re wrong about cigarettes?” When Nick Naylor talks to his son, he’s really talking to us. Joey Naylor is merely a means for delivery, a young actor who speaks in monotones and delivers what is supposed to be an uplifting speech to his father after Nick has been fired, but what instead comes off as corny and sounding like the lines have been nuked in a microwave for too long before being served to us.
Though there are a few laugh out loud moments, we are constantly being hit with caricature characters and factors that are fueled by conveniency. Heather Holloway (Katie Holmes) (note to casting crew: Katie Holmes does not fit the role of a seductress) is a journalist who is doing an article on Nick Naylor and yet he never becomes suspicious when she wants to sleep with him and asks him loaded questions while they’re having sex? Cue a scene with the cliche cinematic montage of a population reading a negative newspaper article while it’s being read aloud to us, a scenario that made me gag in Never Been Kissed and didn’t do much better here. Flash forward to Senator Ortolan K. Finistirre conveniently turning on the television just as Nick Naylor announces his triumphant come-back, and flash forward even more to little Joey Naylor and his mother conveniently walking in just as Naylor is called before the Senate Sub-committee, in which he delivers his usual lame spin and is once again met with luke-warm, stammering rebuttal.
But the real reason this movie fails (other than its bad characterization) is the fact that it doesn’t understand its own themes. What does Nick Naylor (and by extension, we) learn from all this? It’s never quite clear. After he has been fired and abandoned by the tobacco industry, he still inexplicably fights for them. And then later when he’s offered his job back, he declines, alluding to some kind of moral guilt that is somehow connected to his son. But right before the ending credits, we learn that he’s still lobbying for companies and that he’s still producing spin.
What could have been the ultimate attack on the essence of truth, a strict analyzation of bullshit, simply degrades itself into a nifty idea: Let’s make a movie that portrays the other side in a (sort-of) positive light. Unfortunately, an idea by itself isn’t enough to carry a movie, and so in the end, Thank You for Smoking wasn’t even worth the matinee price I paid to get in.
