Years ago, I watched a man named Chad convince his best friend, Matt, to make a deaf woman fall in love with him. The plan was to have her fall head-over-heels and then leave her broken hearted. She did fall in love with Matt. And even though he fell in love with her as well, being the beta male and going along with whatever Chad said, he eventually ripped her heart out. I knew that Chad was the mastermind behind the whole ordeal. And the fact that he’s a businessman – an overgrown boy who never moved out of the fraternity house – didn’t help. I hated him. I hated Matt too. But Chad was someone to despise.
We saw Thank You For Smoking last night. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision. Making spur-of-the-moment decisions to see movies before one has eaten dinner is a big mistake. Tobyjoe and I both ended up cramming whatever edible substance we could find at Whole Foods into our open mouths. I ate alone on the second floor cafe level where he would eat later as I made a beeline to the theater in order to get decent seats.
Once he arrived, thoroughly unsatisfied from our most peculiar dinner contraption, we decided to compound upon our belly aches by purchasing (and later finishing) a medium popcorn and a bag of peanut M&Ms. Needless to say, smoking or not smoking wasn’t what grazed our minds for the duration of the film. Instead, our bellies sat there percolating. Oh to have some Pepto to wash it all down.
I don’t like to drone on and on about films because, well, it’s probably pretty boring to read. I would like to say a few things, however. Nick Naylor works as a tobacco lobbyist, which pretty much means he offers money to people to ensure that more and more people continue to smoke. And while his boss (Robert Duvall) is chauffeured around in a Rolls Royce, he’s making sure that America’s youth continues to light up by trying to figure out ways to help them do just that.
I know, it doesn’t sound very funny at all. But it is! I promise you; at times it’s laugh out loud funny. And the cast is phenomenal. I could have done without seeing Dennis Miller (because I don’t like him) but his role is small and pretty meaningless.
Thank You For Smoking was so good, and Aaron Eckhart did such a fine job at playing Nick Naylor, I actually forgave him for playing Chad in In The Company Of Men so many years ago. In Thank You For Smoking, I found that I was actually rooting for him.
Side not: One thing I found very interesting about the film was that at no time did I see anyone actually smoke a cigarette at least not to my recollection. Even the tobacco dealers didn’t smoke. I’m not sure why, but I found that little detail (or lack thereof) really great.
Go see it. Katie Holmes almost gets naked.
Mihow 
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