Smoke ’em if you got ’em

Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart) is one charming fellow, and unfortunately for the folks who trade in outrage, he’s also the more-than-effective spin doctor for the big tobacco lobby. When ambushed on a talk show with a teen smoker diagnosed with cancer, it’s his duty to remind viewers that it is not in his bosses’ interests to have their customers dying, but in the interests of the anti-smoking crusaders to traffic in the misery.

When a former Marlboro man (Sam Elliott) is using his untreatable case of lung cancer as a crusade against smoking, it’s Nick’s assignment to be the drop man and swing by the man’s ranch with a briefcase of hush money. And when a state senator from Vermont (William H. Macy) unveils a campaign to label packs of cigarettes with the image of a skull and crossbones, it’s only in the spirit of fairness for Nick to point out that cholesterol is the leading cause of death of Americans, and that darned Vermont cheese is just loaded with the artery-clogging killer.

Needless to say, Nick doesn’t have a lot of friends, save for Polly (Monica Bello) of the alcohol lobby and Bobby Jay (David Koechner) of the gun lobby, who compare notes over lunch in their unofficial capacity as The MOD Squad (a.k.a. Merchants of Death).

Things are going well for Nick; the mortgage is getting paid, his son (the seemingly omnipresent Cameron Bright) looks up to him, and that cute reporter from The Washington Probe (Katie Holmes) seems to have an insatiable taste for his flesh. In a good way. He thinks.

But of course everything is just about to blow up in his face.

As the old saw goes, satire is something that closes on Saturday. Which conveniently enough gets to be put to the test, as Thank You for Smoking (based on the novel by Christopher Buckley, a highly recommended read along with his UFO conspiracy satire, Little Green Men) opened on the same day as satire’s lowbrow-cousin parody, Scary Movie 4.

TYFS is one of the cleverest examples of satire that has hit mainstream theaters in quite a while—deftly amusing and incisive without succumbing to hamfistedness to drive home a point, and more than ably crewed by a perfectly cast ensemble of familiar faces.

Credit first-time director Jason Reitman (son of Ivan) with adapting and updating the material and staying commendably true to the source material, while maintaining a consistently brisk pacing throughout. Given the subject matter, all involved manage to invert perceptions without being offensive and still deliver solid entertainment.