Went and saw Thank You For Smoking this weekend, and sadly it was only 'okay'. There are many reasons that it never rose above that, but the main one in my opinion is that Writer/Director Reitman never really seemed to decide what this movie was about.
Is it a dark comedy about how we promote and sell one of the most dangerous things on earth? If so it never really reaches the absurd and disturbing levels of irony reached by Lord of War.
Is it a ballsy political statement about freedom of choice and how it is in fact worth the cost of more than a thousand lives a day and all of the associated social costs of the diseases that smoking causes? If so it didn't leave me walking out of the theatre proud to be free the way The People vs Larry Flynt did.
Was it simply a character study about a man with a horrid, despicable job, trying to make it work and raise his son to be a good person? If so, I never felt the character faced the same challenges as Cage's Weather Man.
Aside from this critical weakness, the film suffered from a few other significant failings. The sound was poor and often poorly mixed or balanced (though this could have been something faulty in the theatre I suppose), and the editing in particular was painful and distracting. There were a number of scenes - particularly his occasional lunches with the 'MOD' Squad where the editor was - for some reason - simply cutting back to close shots on each speaker for every line of dialog. By the end of 60 seconds of this, I actually started to wonder if the actors were even in the same room - it was that painful. There were other minor (but still distracting) technical faults throughout (was Rob Lowe's ghoulish make-up job intentional?) but I will mostly put these down to being made under (what I imagine are) the budgetary constraints of putting together a film for Fox Searchlight
Yikes - now that I've dumped on it, I feel like I should say there were some things I really liked about it. The sequences in LA with Rob Lowe are darkly twisted and Lowe's straight man is hilarious (despite a less than perfect script). Young Adam Brody, as Lowe's assistant nails the surreal LA greeting in a sequence that almost made soda-pop shoot out my nose. Actress Kim Dickens - as the ex-wife of Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart) is convincing and engaging in her 3-4 brief scenes. I remembered her from the brilliant Zero Effect (written and directed by another 'son of a famous director) and always wanted more of her, but rarely see her. Too bad.
Needless to say, Robert Duvall is still a genius. He is great as the covertly racist southern landed-lord tobacco king. In his first scene, sitting in the cigar lounge of the secret club of tobacco kings drinking a mint julep, his physicality is shocking. He fills his chair (and his role) like he was poured into it. The scene made me appreciate what a real actor can do with his body, and made me realize that Duvall has always been a master of this (compare the upright posture of Tom Hagen to the distinctly other upright posture Colonel Kilgore, or compare him is his air chair here to him in his armchair in his Slingblade cameo). It made me remember that acting isn't just about having 17 different flavors of perfect smile. Unfortunately, despite his greatness, the camera doesn't give him the room to bring more to the film - whether this was the directors choice not to shoot it that way or the editors choice to leave the best bits on the floor, I'll never know.
On the whole, the acting is quite solid throughout, and I think that with a stronger script, a clearer understanding of what the film was about, and a little bit (not a lot) more money to clean up some of the noticeable technical failings, it could have been much, much better.
Keep in mind that I am really picky, and maybe you'll like it. I hope it does well, and Reitman makes Fox's money back so they'll let him do another. He clearly has some strong skills in working with actors, and I imagine he can leverage that into a great career if he gets the chance to work with the right people on the technical side.
"always wanted more of her, but rarely see her. Too bad."
Deadwood, yo.
- JT
Posted by: Jordan | May 05, 2006 at 06:19 PM