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Thank You For Smoking [2005] | ![Thank You For Smoking [2005]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ulHL4WONL._SL160_.jpg)
 enlarge | Director: Jason Reitman
Actors: Aaron Eckhart, Sam Elliott, Robert Duvall, Maria Bello, David Koechner
Studio: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Category: DVD
List Price: £17.99
Buy Used: £2.99
You Save: £15.00 (83%)
New (20) Used (8) from £2.99
Rating:  24 reviews
Sales Rank: 5688
Format: Anamorphic, Pal
Languages: English (Subtitled), English (Original Language)
Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Region: 2
Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 88 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.6
EAN: 5039036029629
ASIN: B000KF0WKS
Theatrical Release Date: 2005
Release Date: January 8, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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Amazon.co.uk Review
As one of the funniest films released in 2006, Thank You for Smoking works precisely because it shouldn't. Its protagonist is Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart), a smooth-talking spokesman for the American tobacco industry, and therefore one of the 21st Century's most demonised men. From his gelled hair to his perfect teeth, he's all slick and smarmy charm, though crucially, it's his self-awareness that keeps him from degenerating into a completely amoral character. Naylor genuinely loves his teenaged son, Joey (Cameron Bright), and he's determined to be a good role model. However, that's not such an easy feat when the press and a US Senator are baying for your blood, and your own best friends are the self-styled M.O.D. (Merchants of Death) Squad (one is a gun lobbyist, the other does the same for alcohol). Thank You for Smoking is a satire, but director / screenwriter Jason Reitman is clever enough to play it straight. And the supporting cast are, as a whole, superb, from William H Macy's liberal, headline-grabbing Senator to Katie Holmes's two-faced journalist. But it's Eckhart's performance as the charismatic Nick Naylor that is so convincing. By the end of the film, he manages to build sympathy not just for himself, but for the American tobacco industry--and that's no mean feat for Hollywood, particularly as non-smoking laws mean that, throughout the entirety of Thank You for Smoking, nobody is seen smoking a cigarette. --Ted Kord
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| Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
 A dark entertaining satire that lights up the screen December 10, 2006
russell clarke (halifax, west yorks)
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
Adapted from a 1994 novel "Thank You For Smoking" which in a rare instance of common sense the studio haven't changed( Incidentally why do they adapt novels into films and then change the title?) this movie like that novel is a satire that actually possesses a cutting edge. In fact it's so sharp it should qualify under the dangerous weapons act.
The film is essentially about how if someone doctors the truths, or more pertinently lies so well that he/she begins to believe the lies, that they convince other people that their version of the truth is the truth even though it's fundamentally a lie and maybe that the other guy is not only wrong but is the one telling the lies even though he/she is probably telling the truth. It's called spin doctoring and the fact that the source novel was written just before the coming to power of the Labour Government, spin doctors so fiendish they make Shane Warne look like Ashley Giles, is so prescient it's downright spooky. The film of course is set amongst the tobacco lobbyists of America and is brought forward to the present day but otherwise director Jason Reitman has pretty much left the source novel unaltered.
Set in Washington the movie sees Tobacco lobbyist Nick Naylor( Aaron Eckhart) who is the spokesman for the grandly titled "Academy of Tobacco Studies "and whose job it is to counter all the health organisations , particaully "The American Lung Association " with counters-studies, double speak and gross perversions of the truth so people keep buying the cancer sticks.
Nick is very good at this and has no compunction about the fact that he targets teenagers as customers because "Get em young and you got em for life". However his life gets more complicated when he starts dating a newspaper reporter Heather Holloway ( Katie Holmes) who is working on a story about him which complicates thing with his 12 years old son (Cameron Bright) Then Senator Ortolan Finistirre ( William H Macy) introduces a bill that would mean every pack of cigarettes would contain a warning label of a skull and crossbones and the word "Poison" in large black letters while Nick is trying to obtain some product placement in a new movie with an unhinged producer ( Rob Lowe).
Full of great lines and a redemptive story arc that is actually believable the films greatest triumph is in the casting which is flawless for virtually every role. Anyone who has seen Aaron Eckhart in the film "The Company Of Men" will know he can play charming duplicitous charismatic schemers superbly and he is perfect as the quick firing Nick. Even the normally bland Katie Holmes is fine. Add to that Macy as the fussy senator and memorable cameos from Robert Duvall as a tobacco company patriarch , David Koechner as a deranged speaker for the forearms lobby, Sam Elliot who has one memorable scene as a former Marlboro man dying of cancer and the gorgeous Maria Bello as a lobbyist for the alcohol companies. Best of all is J.K. Simmons( Who played JJ Jameson , Peter Parkers boss in "Spiderman") who is again voluble and brilliant as Nicks boss barking out lines "We don't sell Tic Tacs , we sell cigarettes, they cool, addictive and available. The job is almost done for you".
Cigarettes, cool, addictive and available ...hhmm, a bit like this excellent darkly entertaining film then.
"We sell cigarettes. And they're cool, available, and addictive" June 20, 2007
pointone (Bournemouth UK)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This wonderful line of dialogue is the rationale for a glorious satire, even the title sequence with its great sequence of pseudo cigarette pack designs is part of the fun.
Aaron Eckhart turns in a career best performance as Nick Naylor the smooth talking fast thinking lobbyist for the tobacco industry. Nick is one of a trio of lobbyists calling themselves "The Merchants of Death" promoting alcohol and firearms, tobacco holding pride of place as the largest killer.
Considering this is a satire Naylor is a brilliant fully rounded character, we see all sides of his personality especially his love and parenting skills with his son Joey (Cameron Bright).
Even more remarkable this appears to be Director Jason Reitman's first feature film.
A brilliant satire that smokers and non-smokers alike can enjoy January 7, 2007
Daniel Jolley (Shelby, North Carolina USA)
11 out of 13 found this review helpful
This is an intelligent, excellent satirical film, so don't get caught up in the title, for I think it can be misleading. Smokers, for example, will likely suspect this film of being a vengeful attempt to make Big Tobacco look like Satan's most loyal servants, while anti-tobacco's attack dogs may suspect some hidden agenda to actually make smoking look cool. Neither would be correct. Thank You For Smoking launches its barbs into both sides of the tobacco conflict, shining a good bit of the harsh light of truth onto both. No matter which side you're on, you can enjoy this brilliant little film.
The sad fact is that the debate over smoking oftentimes has nothing to do with cigarettes; it's really all about money and power and politics. Look at Al Gore, who could cry about the loss of his sister to cancer even as he profited from tobacco, or Bill Clinton (who did things with a cigar that even Big Tobacco would never condone), whose attack on Big Tobacco conveniently served him as a smokescreen to distract the public from his many personal problems. Obviously, many people do oppose smoking for very sincere reasons, but some politicians jump on board merely as a means to power and influence. In this movie, they're represented by Vermont's Senator Ortolan K. Finistirre (William H. Macy), who is leading the effort to put a large poison label on cigarettes. He's not exactly all heart, though: berating his assistant for not choosing someone obviously on death's door for his "cancer boy," lamenting the fact that one of his enemies didn't actually die after being attacked by anti-smoking vigilantes, and generally engaging in the same kind of self-profiting spin as the representatives of Big Tobacco.
Finistirre's nemesis is Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart), the smooth-talking de facto spokesman for the tobacco industry. Eckhart's brilliant performance keeps the film far away from the many pitfalls that would seem to dominate the landscape for this kind of satire. Naylor is almost untouchably good at his job, able to deftly and quickly take a hostile crowd and win them over (or at least stave them off) with his defense of freedom and personal choice in America. What does he do what he does? That's never definitively answered, but paying the mortgage is alluded to by Nick and several other characters. One thing that Nick alone has, however, is a human and sympathetic persona, as revealed in his relationship with his son. The presence of the boy adds to the story's otherwise absurdist atmosphere, as we watch the boy look up to and begin to emulate his father's debating skills. More than that, it shows us a human side to Nick, and that is something this film almost had to have in order to succeed.
Nick's character is sort of morally ambivalent, but you can't help but like him - and he certainly comes off in a better light than Senator Finistirre and a certain reporter played (passably at best) by Katie Holmes. Nick should have known better than to sleep with a journalist, as Heather Holloway goes about doing her job much the same way Nick goes about doing his. Her only concern is the story and the attention it will bring her. She and Finistirre, much more than Nick and his fellow spokesmen from the alcohol and firearms industries (who jokingly refer to themselves as the MOD [Merchants of Death] Squad and argue over which of their products is more deadly) are the real villains of the story. Even if and when they might do the right thing, they do it for all the wrong reasons. Nick may engineer good spin for Big Tobacco, but at least he doesn't pretend to be someone he isn't.
The film features a surprisingly good cast (excepting Katie Holmes, of course, whose "steamy" scene with Eckhart is almost too far away from the camera to be seen with the naked eye), including the likes of Eckhart, Elliott, Macy, Robert Duvall, Rob Lowe, and - in a really funny cameo - Dennis Miller. Jason Reitman may be a young filmmaker, but he really nailed just about every aspect of this film. Making a film about Big Tobacco that never deviates from its satirical position to moralize either for or against smoking, skewers all concerned parties equally, defies the dangerous modern-day obsession with political correctness, and maintains a consistently intelligent, funny atmosphere throughout, is quite an accomplishment indeed. Unless you simply can't take a joke (or you're the reviewer from the LA Times or some similar leftist rag), you're going to enjoy this movie.
top-notch May 6, 2007
Hannah E. Dennerly (Manchester, UK)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
One of the bravest and most effective comedies ever to come out of the USA, this film has a grasp of irony that is lacking in most examples of its genre.
It does make you sympathetic to the obstacles that the lead character (Nick Naylor) has to overcome, but at the same time makes you realise what type of propaganda you are being subjected to, making you better equipped to resist its effects.
Of course, dealing with such a high-profile health issue, it has to have a serious message, but this is done without any of the saccherine-sweetness usually employed in these situations. There are no tearful reunions, no sweet little children cooing 'I love you, daddy', and no cries of 'I've learned my lesson, I'm going to work for the lung cancer foundation'. Thank god.
Definitely watch it more than once; there are several subtle lines that you will miss first time round, and many that you'll wish you'd thought of.
Smokin' May 23, 2007
J. S. Meins (UK)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
This is the snappiest film I've seen for ages and has the sort of energy you associate with a Tarantino film and biting - hilarious - irony found in a Robert Altman ensemble (think The Player). The story concerns a smooth lobbyist who talks on behalf of the big tobacco companies and he really should be someone we hate, because he and his associates are immoral capitalists who flog their wares (guns, alcohol and crap movies) in the most cynical way possible, but instead we root for him because the alternative is to support the weasly politicians (the as usual brilliant Macy) and beardy environmentalists who seem week and seedy. It might not be how you feel in the real world but "Thank You for Not Smoking" will have you pulling for the bad guys. All the cast (Rob Lowe, Aaron Eckhart, SK Simmons, Cameron Bright, Robert Duvall) are absolutely brilliant and it was a nice touch for a movie about smoking to not feature a single person smoking throughout. Clever. At the end of the day this might be a serious subject but this is foremost an entertaining and fabulous film - watch it now. Oh yeah, best opening credits in years.
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