"Thank You For Smoking" Suffers From Multiple Personality Disorder

Sometimes a good movie misses out on being a great movie simply because it couldn’t decide what it wanted to be. Most of us applaud directors who meld various genres or themes into one film, but sometimes we can also recognize when a director couldn’t quite decide. Unfortunately, I think Jason Reitman fell into this trap in his film “Thank You For Smoking.”

It’s not that this wasn’t an enjoyable flick. As a tobacco shill and spin-control wordsmith, Aaron Eckhart (as Nick Naylor) perfectly captured the smug depiction of a lobbyist who is easily able to disassociate himself from what he is doing, and William H. Macy is terrific as always as over-the-edge Vermont Senator Ortolan K. Finistirre. The M.O.D. (Merchants of Death) Squad meetings between Nick, Polly (Maria Bello, representing alcohol) and Bobby Jay (the hilarious David Koechner, repping firearms) were very funny and a nice touch. Hell, even Rob Lowe was actually pretty damn funny in a cameo, which is weird since I figured that, these days, he and Corey Haim sniffed airplane glue all day and hung out outside E! headquarters trying to get them to do another “True Hollywood Story” on them. There were a lot of laughs, even though I didn’t “laugh ‘til it hurts,” which is what Rolling Stone insisted I would do. In fact, your laughs actually start to acquire a nervous tinge when watching, because some of the “ridiculous” discourse and events are actually probably not very ridiculous at all. Like “Idiocracy,” the movie hits closer to home than many people are willing to admit, forcing you to cringe in your seat at times – as you chuckle involuntarily.

This was inarguably a humorous and clever film, but it suffered from its inherent schizophrenia. Was it supposed to be a satirical view of big tobacco? A father-son story wrapped inside larger issues? A redemption story about a man able to overcome his moral subjectivism? A scathing commentary on lobbyists in general? An attack on consumerism? A denouncement of the media and the lengths it will go to follow or create a story? A statement about the double standards of bureaucracy? Maybe my own confusion tainted my view of the film, since I had heard how funny it was and came in expecting a comedy with few thought-provoking plotlines. But this film did a good job of not taking sides and it managed to delve deep into the seamy underside of big business without going overboard.

You could argue that “Thank You For Smoking” can be viewed as a missed opportunity, but the bottom line is that it’s a fun, easy-to-watch flick. It’s just not great … though I think it could have been. I’ll always file it under my personal What Might Have Been category, but it’s still a movie you should check out at some point.