Last weekend I craved taut, tense romantic suspense but couldn't find a movie with that vibe. This weekend son #3 did the choosing. His mission: a movie we could all enjoy. We = me, dh, two sons; 4 distinct tastes; 4 different visions of what constitutes a good movie.
So.
He chose
THANK YOU FOR SMOKING and, honestly, I haven't laughed so much in yonks. I'm even thinking this may shoot all the way to my Top Ten list. Loved the satire, the clever subversive humour, the use of narrator's voice--but then that could be because I loved our anti-hero narrator and protagonist, Nick Naylor (heh), charismatic spin doctor for the tobacco industry, brilliantly portrayed by Aaron Eckhardt (where has he been hiding all my life???)
Nick describes himself as "You know the guy who can pick up any girl? I'm him. On crack." But then he also introduces himself like this: "Few people on this planet knows what it is to be truly despised. Can you blame them? I earn a living fronting an organization that kills 1200 people a day. Twelve hundred people. We're talking two jumbo jet plane loads of men, women and children. I mean, there's Attila, Genghis... and me, Nick Naylor. The face of cigarettes, the Colonel Sanders of nicotine."
Loved the dialogue at the MOD Squad lunches. MOD=Merchants of Death, Nick's best mates being his colleagues working for the alcohol and gun lobbies. Nick(in narrator's voice) introduces Polly, the alcohol lobbyist, thus: "Polly works for the Moderation Council. A casual drinker by the age of 14, Polly quickly developed a tolerance usually reserved for Irish dockworkers. In our world, she's the woman that got the pope to endorse red wine."
Loved the father-son arc, loved how the storyline played out, the irony of Nick's punishment (I love me some irony!), and the satisfying end which remained true to character. Loved all the performances from the secondaries...lemme think. There's Robert Duvall as Nick's big boss, William Macy as an anti-smoking senator, Sam Elliott as the originial Marlboro Man (now with lung cancer), Katie Holmes as a cleverboots journo, Rob Lowe as a bigshot Hollywood agent (the scenes in the offices of EGO are worth the rental alone) and Adam Brody as his assistant.
Highly recommended if you appreciate smart dialogue, a clever script, great performances and humour that's heavy on the irony and not so much on the political correctness.
"We don't sell Tic Tacs, we sell cigarettes. And they're cool, available, and *addictive*. The job is almost done for us."
Labels: movies
posted by Bronwyn Jameson @ 9:06 AM
