Inspired naughtiness today, courtesy of Jason Reitman. Thank You for Smoking was his first full-length feature and it's a little slice of genius, as gleefully subversive as you could hope for. Based on a novel by Christopher Buckley, it stars the brilliant Aaron Eckhart as Nick Naylor, top spokesman for the tobacco lobby. Square-jawed and utterly unrepentant, he meets for regular drinking sessions with his equivalents from the tobacco and gun industry - they call themselves the Mod Squad (Merchants of Death) and indulge in occasional pissing contests as to whose cause kills the most Americans per year.
Eckhart narrates events covering a few months in Naylor's life, as his star rises and he tries to connect with his young son. There's not a huge amount of plot, and what there is doesn't really kick in until around halfway through. It doesn't matter, though - as monsters go, Naylor is a delicious one and I thoroughly enjoyed every second I spent in his company. He encounters a variety of horrifying but compelling characters (J.K. Simmons is great as his boss, while William H. Macy swaps his usual slightly pathetic everyman persona for a similar role as a slightly pathetic Vermont senator), and it's left to the audience to watch in appalled but enthralled incredulity. In an elegant touch, none of the cast are ever seen smoking no matter how eloquently they speak for the habit.
There's more I could say about this, I'm sure, but sometimes a light touch is best. This is 92 minutes of solid, smart entertainment, and I'm not sure I can offer any higher recommendation than that.
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