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Vol. I
No. 10 Yuppie Mephistopheles Lights
Up Film in Focus While you could rightly accuse the aforementioned of postulating such blatantly one-sided slants as to lose part of their target audiences, Thank You takes no prisoners in slamming corporados, lobbyists, politicians, Hollywood and the news media alike. Not that these targets aren’t richly deserving of the treatment, first delivered in the book of the same name by Christopher Buckley, son of the infamous paleoconservative commentator William F. Buckley. Yet the motto, “America is living in spin” is a point which pokes lefties and rightists alike right in their sanctimonious asses.
Her label somewhat fits as Naylor flacks for a Skeletor-cum-Strom Thurmond look-alike, “The Captain” tobacco CEO played by the venerable Robert Duvall (The Apostle, Apocalypse Now) and his trusted flunky B.R. – although this performance by J.K. Simmons (The Mexican, The Jackal) was fairly typecast when held up next to his John Jonah Jameson portrayal in the Spiderman series. The equivocations are boundless as Naylor does the bidding of scarcely-veiled evil, valiantly undermining decades of medical studies with death-defying rhetorical gymnastics – all on the basis of what he calls the Yuppie Nuremburg argument, “I do it for the mortgage.”
Nonetheless, his flippancy is tested by anti-tobacco terrorists and most especially by the tough questions coming from his son Joey, in another strong performance by the best child actor around, the usually spooky Cameron Bright (Godsend, Ultraviolet). His field trip with Dad from D.C. to L.A. brings him face to face with a cancer-ridden former Marlboro Man played by Sam Elliott (Tombstone, The Big Lebowski) who is none too excited at the prospect of being bribed for his silence – although on the same trip a far more frightening encounter is faced thanks to the smarmy studio duo played by Rob Lowe (St. Elmo’s Fire, Austin Powers) and Adam Brody (The O.C., Mr. And Mrs. Smith). Credit must be given by the carton-load to Jason Reitman, who wrote the screenplay and directed in the tradition of his father, Ivan Reitman of Ghostbusters fame. He cleverly uses a bevy of well-timed pro and anti-smoking songs, from a cynical Tex Williams with “Smoke Smoke That Cigarette” to the lovelorn Patsy Cline in “Three Cigarettes In An Ashtray,” while still avoiding even one on-screen puff by any of the characters, even those hopelessly addicted to that smooth menthol badness. Did I mention the smug Democratic Senator from Wisconsin one-upped on his state’s cheese-laden cholesterol-implicated ways? Finally we’re blessed with an intelligent film which skewers the pigs in power and avoids the pitfalls of preaching to the choir. Let’s hope dour documentary makers take note. Grade: A |
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Copyright © 2005-06, Humboldt Sentinel. All rights reserved. |
In
the last couple of years the role of the political film has been near-taken
over by documentaries like Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, Gore’s
An Inconvenient Truth and even the lowest of the low, The
Corporation. Luckily the genre of satire was not entirely forgotten
and has once more been resuscitated from obscurity with Thank You
For Smoking.
Nick
Naylor, our diabolically charming protagonist played by Aaron Eckhart
(Suspect Zero, Your Friends And Neighbors), is dubbed
the Yuppie Mephistopheles by an unscrupulous reporter and love interest,
Heather Holloway. It’s a true breakthrough for formerly unimaginative
Katie Holmes (Batman Begins, Wonder Boys) as she seduces
and connives her way into a story quite different from what we expect.
Yes, she also reveals more than we’ve seen from her as yet on the
big or small screen, and more then we’re likely to see now that
she’s married with children and in a cult to boot.
For
relaxation beyond the bedroom Naylor turns to the MOD squad, named for
the Merchants Of Death consisting of himself and fellow lobbyists who
front for bullets and booze. While commiserating with them on their relatively
favorable standing in society compared to his troubled industry, they
provide both the high points of this dark comedy and “they hate
our freedom” mentality essential for lobbyists – and politicians
– who revel in relativism while pretending to high ideals.