Satire is very hard to get right -- it's an icepick that's all too often wielded like a sledgehammer. The case study of the week is Thank You for Smoking, the smug, unfunny film version of Christopher Buckley's smug, unfunny novel (which, full disclosure, I put down after I was about a quarter of the way through and never picked up again). As political commentary, it's self-righteous, grating, and tone-deaf. As cinema, it's slick, predictable, and unconvincing.
I'm not saying that just because I'm at odds with the politics (such as they are) of the protagonist, a self-satisfied lobbyist for Big Tobacco who delights in "winning arguments" by making smoking about personal freedom instead of about health. I'm rather appalled by how the movie champions the libertarian philosophy without dignifying the other side with a presumption of reason and legitimate concern about people's health (the anti-tobacco forces are uniformly portrayed as effete, ineffectual, and dedicated solely to bankrupting the tobacco industry, using health as a smokescreen -- so to speak -- for their nefarious motives). But if the movie had been funny, I'd have forgiven it (even as I walked through a cloud of smoke to get into the theater, my eyes stinging -- even as I sit here typing this review in my room with the stench of cigarette smoke seeping in from the people next door and the morons who smoke in the hallway).
Maybe part of the problem is Aaron Eckhart as
the slick
lobbyist who's never troubled by a whisper of doubt.
There's something flat and unconvincing about
him -- worse, something dull. His
bombastic boss, played by J.K. Simmons, is more entertaining -- in
fact, most of the entertainment I
gleaned from this dross came from supporting players.
Like Rob Lowe as a spacy Hollywood studio
executive, or Adam Brody as his mile-a-minute, name-dropping,
on-the-make
assistant. And Eckhart's fellow Merchants of Death -- Maria Bello
representing the alcohol industry and David Koechner for the gun lobby
-- have their moments. Still, it's not enough to make it worth
seeing the movie.
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