Thank You for Smoking – Review

Opening with a daytime talk show with a guest panel comprised of the President for Mothers Against Teen Smoking, the Chairwoman for The Lung Association, the top aide for Health & Human Services, Cancer Boy, (Robin Williger, a young bald-headed ex-smoker teen cancer patient), and finally Nick Naylor (Eckhart), the VP of Tobacco Studies, the main lobby in Washington D.C., we know sparks are about to fly.

Naylor earns a living fronting an organization that kills 1,200 people a day. That’s two jumbo jet loads. He explains the reality of the tobacco industry to the audience briefly, before going back to our daytime talk show scene. It is obviously a heated issue for the panel, but Nick’s main question is, why would tobacco want their customers to get cancer and die, since it’s clearly in their best interest to keep people alive and smoking.

The spin doesn’t stop there. Naylor has been there before, he knows what to say and do, spewing at the audience how the company is dedicated to stopping children smoking, and kids are the heart of America. People start to buy in. Why would tobacco companies want their income stream customer to die anyway??

As the film brings in other elements of governance and sin, Thank You for Smoking never loses steam in its modest runtime. It doesn’t shy away from most anything, however it does use a lot of comedy and lean heavily into satire when necessary.

Thank You for Smoking is both really funny, and fairly accurate, which makes it a bit scarier. In a world twisted with spin, this movie from 20 years ago feels like it could come out today on a various multitude of topics and remain just as accurate. I imagine that the book this is based on is also fairly solid.