SnoopyStyle Lobbyist Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart) is the slick, amoral, sharp-tongue vice-President of the Academy of Tobacco Studies. He can spin any argument in favor of tobacco. BR (J.K. Simmons) is his loud bombastic boss. His best friends are alcohol lobby Moderation Council's Polly Bailey (Maria Bello) and gun lobby SAFETY's Bobby Jay Bliss (David Koechner). Their biggest opposition is Senator Ortolan Finistirre (William H. Macy). Tobacco baron, the Captain (Robert Duvall) puts him in charge of bringing tobacco back to Hollywood. His son Joey (Cameron Bright) guilts his ex-wife Jill (Kim Dickens) to let him go on the LA trip. Reporter Heather Holloway (Katie Holmes) has a fling with him and betrays him.Jason Reitman has filmed a brilliant and smart movie. The problem is that people are too stupid except for Nick. It's really frustrating to see stupid people failing to argue with Nick. The other problem is that the characters are all caricatures which takes away any poignancy. It also takes away the comedy. There are too many things that annoy which is the opposite of funny. It also feels too light and bright for the subject matter. Nick needs to be hiding something dark and ugly. He's more of a robot than a fully developed human being. Anything with Dennis Miller smirking is not funny. I don't feel for the guy or that annoying kid. The only guy I'm interested in is the guy who threatened him on Dennis Miller's show. It's one of the few moments where reality seeped into the performances and the movie. Even the kidnapping scene is problematic. Any kidnapper would want to shut him up by duct taping his mouth. The whole medical thing sounds unreal. This is such a smartly written movie but the general feeling from it is one of frustrating annoyance.

mcsteamy-54-938259 First,sorry for asking questions in review,i am bad at English which make using "FAQ" hard for me. i just really don't get what does it mean when the mortgage part.the man say mortgage is much of the life goal.and something about rent. my friends keep arguing about that and just can't come to a conclusion. i don't know when sb will happen to read this review,thank you for your time .apologize for my bad writing . ..is there ten lines? i can't do this writing!it makes me feel like i am in my English exam.... what? i will never get it. OK..i am going to write something just help me to fill the paper:i like this movie,and i found myself really interested in arguments.i just finished one course in Coursera provided by Duke university mainly about arguing,and logic.it makes me analysize articles and put them into the standard form to figure out how it works. people just keep making bad arguments all the time!maybe i am too hard on them,anyway ,i think if you want others listen to you,it's so basic to put your agruments right and pick the right word.(and work hard on English at least in my case) By the way,the Chi Gorv just blocked(i am sure it;s not the right word)the line,ins just after google FB twitter and so on,thank you for leaving IMDb for us!Maybe the officer

rooprect Dang it, that's what I get for waiting 8 years to see this movie. All the other reviewers have already used up all the smoking pun titles. So... without any catchy intro, here's my review."Thank You for Smoking" does something that very few movies can accomplish. It features a character who does reprehensible things, and it makes us genuinely like him, cheer him on, laugh with him & applaud him for doing things which, in real life, would annoy us to the point of heart failure.I'm talking about the "spin doctor", the doublespeaker, the political gasbag who could sell a baby a lollipop made of poop (and count his money as the baby dies of cholera). His name is Nick Naylor (played by Aaron Eckhart), and he is the hero of this movie.You'd think that a movie with this premise could only work as an absurdist comedy like "Airplane!" or "Hot Shots!" or even a Christopher Guest type mockumentary like "Spinal Tap" or "Best in Show". But writer/director Jason Reitman takes the tough road by weaving a straight story with a sane, rational, human protagonist.Yes, this is a satire, so there are plenty of absurdly comical scenes like when Nick shows up at his son's career day and essentially convinces a bunch of 12-year-old kids to smoke. But for the most part, the story is solidly-grounded, logically plausible and probably more truth than it is fiction.In this film, the whole tobacco plot is basically a smokescreen. (Ha, I knew there was a pun left!) The real story is on a human level, and it's the story of a father & his son. Yeah, that might sound a little boring, but that's where the tobacco drama comes in to spice up the tale. In telling the "simple" tale of a father and son, Reitman takes us through many comedic hijinks including traitorous newscasters, psychotic politicians, kidnappers, assassins, shotgun-toting cowboys and a naked guy in the lap of the Lincoln monument. So rest assured, it never gets boring.Nor does the comedy let up, even while telling a sober story of a man attempting to reconcile his amoral career with raising his son in a respectable way. The cute banter between Nick and his son (expertly played by young Cameron Bright) is both philosophical and funny. And that's how Reitman pulls off this amazing achievement. This is a very funny film, but it doesn't depart from reality nor make us emotionally disconnected from the themes at play. It gives you a lot to think about.As far as funny goes, this movie clocked in on my laugh-o-meter with about 1 LOL every 10 minutes and a snicker every 2. Now that's a lot coming from a guy who doesn't usually lol at all. But in the end, it wasn't even the comedy that made this so enjoyable. It was the film's power to make me see a completely different side of a "no brainer" argument like cigarettes & health. The character Nick is so slick-witted and charismatic that he can win any argument (or win the audience over, for that matter) without making any point at all. As he says to his son, "You don't have to prove you're right; you just have to prove your opponent is wrong." Sad but true. And in this case, very funny.I highly recommend this movie to people who are exasperated at all the political doublespeak we hear on the cable news channels every day, to people who can't understand how law & authority & public opinion can get so messed up. It'll make you laugh without upsetting you, and it'll make you see the whole ridiculous debate over smoking as really entertaining. Even though in real life, smoking is a drag ;)

cleary-joshua It's often interesting to see the directorial debut of someone who has gone on to make so many great movies ever since. In so many debuts, like "Duel" or "Following", you can see traces of some of the best tropes or idioms used by a certain director. "Thank You for Smoking" is no different, and provides us with a glimpse of the origins of Jason Reitman's fantastic and often dark sense of humour.The film follows Nick Naylor, a lobbyist for cigarette companies, through various different tasks and problems with his job and family. Nick's relationship with his son is really interesting, and gives the film some of its more touching moments. Plotwise, the film is fairly thin, and takes the shape more of a series of sketches or vignettes with interconnected stories and themes. However, this doesn't bog the film down at all, and just gives it the potential for even more humour and new situations. It's filled with a barrage of fantastic supporting characters too, from Katie Holmes' manipulative journalist, to Rob Lowe's Hollywood agent, and no part of it feels unnecessary or stuck on.The script is the movie's greatest strength, and it reaches a great level of satire, making you think as well as laugh. While smoking is the centre of the movie, it never is encouraged, since we know that Naylor is sweet-talking and slimy. The "Merchants of Death" meetings are a particular stroke of genius, bringing together three controversial industries and making them seem foul. From the very first scene of the film, where Naylor is attempting to put a good spin on cancer when he is opposed greatly on a talk show, even by a boy suffering from lung cancer, you can see that the film is not afraid of being controversial, but manages very well to bring its message across through humour.Lead by a fantastic set of performances and a razor-sharp script, "Thank You for Smoking" is a great start for Jason Reitman, paving the way for his later successes such as "Juno" and "Up in the Air", and manages to be touching, informative and down-right hilarious throughout.