'Thank You For Smoking' goes straight for your lungs

The satire "Thank You For Smoking" merrily blows smoke rings around Big Tobacco's arrogance and obfuscation. Remember, cigarette smoking may be hazardous to your health, the tobacco companies continue to trill self-protectively — even as they target the next generation of nicotine addicts.

Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart), a Washington lobbyist for tobacco, sells cancer sticks like candy. He's the kind of shameless salesman who can appear on Joan Lunden's talk show and use a chemo-bald 15-year-old former smoker as an argument for puffing away. "You know that guy who can pick up any girl?" Nick preens in a voice-over. "I'm him on crack."

Fox Searchlight Pictures 'Thank You For Smoking' B The verdict: Satire of tobacco lobbying coughs up some good comedy. Director: Jason Reitman Starring: Aaron Eckhart, Robert Duvall, Katie Holmes, Rob Lowe, Sam Elliott, William H. Macy, Adam Brody, Maria Bello Run time: 92 minutes Release date: March 17, 2006 Rating: R for language and some sexual content. See showtimes Meet the director •  Director Jason Reitman tells the Palm Beach Post he was never a smoker. •  The Austin American Statesman finds Reitman un-PC and unapologetic. On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime Rate 'Thank You For Smoking'   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

Nick and his fellow Merchants of Death — the self-dubbed MOD Squad — gather weekly to drink, commiserate and swap strategies. Maria Bello, very funny, shills for alcohol while David Koechner fights on behalf of firearms.

Then Nick is summoned by the Captain (Robert Duvall, mint-julep cool), who heads the Academy of Tobacco Studies. Known as the Colonel Sanders of tobacco, the Captain is upset that stars don't light up in movies like they used to. Instead of Bogey and Bacall blowing smoke into each other's eyes, the only ones holding a cigarette are "psychopaths and Europeans."

So Nick is dispatched to Hollywood to sell super-agent Rob Lowe on nude, copulating stars inhaling big-time. Meanwhile, on the other end of the country, sanctimonious Birkenstock-clad Vermont Sen. William H. Macy wants to put a skull-and-crossbones on every pack of cigarettes.

Ably directed by Jason Reitman (son of Ivan) and the subject of a heated bidding war at the Toronto Film Festival, "Thank You For Smoking" can be quite clever. Lowe takes Nick to a trendy restaurant where they only serve white food. Lowe's hop-to-it assistant, Adam Brody, is even slicker and sleazier than Nick or his boss. The former Marlboro Man (Sam Elliott), now loudly dying of cancer, considers a payoff and confesses he was a Kool man, himself.

There are slip-ups. Katie Holmes is simply miscast as a seductive reporter who plays hardball even as she bats her big doe eyes. And the relationship between the divorced Nick and his 12-year-old son (Cameron Bright), which has been amplified from Christopher Buckley's original novel, feels squishy and tacked on. You prefer the black-lung comedy of Nick's unfiltered nastiness to his attempts to be a role model for his boy.

This is Eckhart's best work since "In the Company of Men," in which he played a similarly ruthless, conscienceless slimeball. With his boyish grin and he-man chin, the actor is almost a caricature of the All-American hero. Which makes him all the more effective at what he does. Double-talking a mile a minute and dodging every direct question, he's a cheerfully manipulative devil, clearly infatuated with his own spin control.

True, "Thank You For Smoking" can be more glib than lacerating. Still, a smart-aleck satire with something on its mind is always welcome. The film may not go for your jugular, but it sure goes straight for your lungs.