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Loaded with delightfully unscrupulous characters and and a witty, cynical script, Thank You For Smoking is a sharp satire with a brilliantly smarmy lead performance from Aaron Eckhart.
All Critics (179) | Top Critics (44) | Fresh (154) | Rotten (25) | DVD (18)
The picture is obviously a satire, but it has no sharpness, no sense of daring.
There's enough bite in the dialogue and performances to provoke a hacking cough of approval, and the laugh-out-loud moments are many, not least in scenes featuring Rob Lowe's unctuous Hollywood agent.
Aiming at all targets and hitting none of them, the movie is as harmless and inconsequential as a candy cigarette.
Even the good lines here last a self-congratulatory beat too long.
Deliciously nasty, naughty satire.
Reitman, still in his 20s, knows something that many more seasoned directors never figure out: how to make audiences laugh along with a film that's laughing at itself.
Curiously, the film's key drawback --its impassive resolution feels a little too slick -- is arguably indicative of the theme: no matter how much we may think we're peeling back the layers, all we arrive at is another façade.
Thank You For Smoking gets much of its juice from a superb Aaron Eckhart as Nick Naylor.
The joke fizzles
Thank You For Smoking is an elegant satire, sneaky and subtle...
played so amiably that you barely notice how prickly its barbs are until they have dug right in.
Leave your preconceptions at the door, prepare for your favourite causes to be skewered, and enjoy. This is one fun movie.
With a solid performance from Aaron Eckhart and offering us a deliciously clever commentary on rhetoric, Reitman's debut is an enjoyable satire - even though it must have looked real nice on paper but doesn't really work that well on the screen (especially its sense of humor).
Super Reviewer
Nick Naylor is possibly the most hated man in America; his job is basically to peddle poison to children. But it pays the mortgage...This extremely clever and insightful satire of today's climate of political spin is incredibly sharply written and has lots of laugh out loud moments as it deconstructs the methods used by PR men in the 21st century; even the "good guys" do not emerge unscathed as they are shown to use exactly the same tactics (see the hilarious scene when William H. Macy bemoans the quality of his TV "cancer kid"!). It may not have the flash and bangs of Lord Of War, but it has far more depth; in fact it reminded me more of an updated version of American Psycho. Instead of the hands on greed of the 80s satirised in that film, it shows how the immoral earn their corporate cash through hypocrisy and double talk these days rather than getting their "hands dirty". I couldn't help feeling that Jason Reitman got more carried away with making a political point and smart dialogue than dramatic momentum and so the plot lacked focus, but the cast are all superb and it contains witty and stylish visual and voice over cues in a similar vein to Fight Club and a great soundtrack. Very funny, very clever.
Cleaver Thats the best way to describe this movie and the way Aaron Eckhart acts throughout the whole movie. Enjoy!
Lying's not murder, is it ... and that's the popular wisdom, a thought that guides many existences, but in this flush comedy the lead proclaims, no, sneers that Genghis Khan's got nothing on him as he's the charming and suave mouthpiece for big tobacco. A quick, smart script and smooth direction round out this very enjoyable visit to the darkest of dark sides while admitting, with a smile, no wrongdoing.
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