The so-called “culture of spin” gets taken for its own spin in Thank You for Smoking, a lacerating adaptation of Christopher Buckley’s celebrated 1994 novel. Even with a too-brief running time of 92 minutes, the movie manages to pack in all manner of material both saucy and dicey. Yet when the smoke clears, what’s most visible is the emergence of Aaron Eckhart as a major talent.
Eckhart’s been making movies for quite some time — his initial breakout arrived in 1997, when he played the yuppie misogynist in Neil LaBute’s In the Company of Men — but over the ensuing years, few directors have bothered to offer him roles that were remotely challenging or interesting. But Jason Reitman, the director-scripter of Thank You for Smoking (and son of notable comedy helmer Ivan Reitman), has graciously handed Eckhart a gift-wrapped role in the character of Nick Naylor. If Eckhart’s work here doesn’t catapult him to greater glory — or at least a wider pick of parts — then nothing will.
At the film’s outset, Nick Naylor understands that, as the chief spokesman for the tobacco companies, he’s viewed by a significant part of the population as Public Enemy No. 1. Yet Nick isn’t especially troubled by this designation; if anything, it only challenges him to make the best case he can on behalf of the nation’s cigarette companies. He’s a master of spin, as evidenced by his appearance on a popular talk show. Seated next to a bald teenage boy who’s a cancer survivor, Nick insists that it’s in the best interest of the tobacco companies for this lad to remain alive (so he can continue buying their products) and that it’s actually the anti-smoking forces who want the kid to die in order to fulfill his function as a martyr.
Such a rabble-rousing appearance is nothing new to Nick: He spends his days working his magic as a spin doctor, and he’s bursting with ideas on how to return this country to the days when smoking was not only fashionable but expected. One such brainstorm takes him to the door of Jeff Megall (Rob Lowe), a Hollywood agent who, after listening to Nick’s pitch, figures he can convince Brad Pitt and Catherine Zeta-Jones to engage in a post-coital smoke in their upcoming sci-fi epic set on a space station. One unenviable assignment — to offer a bribe to a former (and dying) Marlboro Man (Sam Elliott) who’s planning to lash out at the tobacco industry — succeeds only because Nick is second to none when it comes to deconstructing opposing arguments. Indeed, he’s so skilled at his job that he attracts the attention of Big Tobacco’s Big Daddy, a crusty old coot (Robert Duvall) prone to mint juleps.
But not everything is going Nick’s way. His only friends (Maria Bello and David Koechner) are fellow spin doctors from the alcohol and firearm lobbies, whom he regularly meets for drinks so they can compare their respective industries’ mortality rates. His burgeoning relationship with an investigative reporter (Katie Holmes) threatens to get messy once he begins opening up to her. (That a seasoned lobbyist would be so naïve when it comes to a newspaper reporter’s sincerity is the only part of the film that’s impossible to swallow.) While debating a testy senator (William H. Macy) on The Dennis Miller Show, Nick receives a death threat from an anonymous caller. And, perhaps most troublesome, he’s not exactly sure where he stands with his young son Joey (Cameron Bright), who adores his dad but often asks tough questions about his profession.
Reitman packs the first half of the picture with a steady stream of laughs, but there’s a noticeable drop-off during the second part. In many black comedies, this signals that the storytellers suddenly feel a twang of remorse over their unrepentant characters and start softening up the picture for a sentimental fade-out. Is that the case here? That’s up to each individual viewer to decide. Some will see the final scenes as a cop-out, a reluctance to go for the jugular. All I see is Nick Naylor still doing what he does best: blowing smoke up the backside of a populace seduced by the wafting words that absolve it of personal responsibility.
Find Me Guilty
Out of all the components that make up the American judicial structure, I never for the life of me could wrap my mind around the logic of a jury system. Basically, the notion behind this ill-conceived idea is this: “Hey, let’s find 12 of the biggest dim-bulbs in the country, a dozen people who are utterly clueless about what’s going on in the world around them, and place all manner of criminal cases big and small in their collective hands.” It’s a ludicrous system for any number of reasons, but don’t take my word regarding its flaws: Just ask Rodney King or the spirit of Nicole Simpson.
The best way to enjoy Find Me Guilty, therefore, is to view it as an indictment of the jury system, as a smackdown of a procedure that allows the dirty dozen to form their opinions of a person’s guilt or innocence not by the incriminating evidence stacked against him nor by the testimony of reliable witnesses but rather by his charisma, his looks and his ability to tell a joke (the same criteria used by many to elect our presidents, I daresay).
The only problem is that it’s more than likely that an anti-jury stance isn’t what’s on director Sidney Lumet’s mind. In telling the true-life tale of a low-level member of a New Jersey mob family, Lumet (sharing screenplay credit with T.J. Mancini and Robert J. McCrea) clearly sides with his protagonist and, in effect, the jury that falls in love with him. Lumet, who’s made a career of law and order films (Dog Day Afternoon and The Verdict are but two of his numerous gems), obviously has great affection for Jackie DiNorscio (Vin Diesel), the maverick defendant in a gargantuan court case that finds prosecutor Sean Kierney (Linus Roache) simultaneously seeking charges against dozens of members of the Calabrese crime syndicate. While the other mobsters are represented by seasoned lawyers, Jackie elects to defend himself.
With only a sixth grade education and little understanding of the law, Jackie initially proves to be a detriment to the case, as his vulgar behavior and uncouth manners test the patience of the judge (Ron Silver), the defendants’ lawyers (most notably a sharp attorney wonderfully played by The Station Agent’s Peter Dinklage) and even the other Goodfellas. But as the trial moves forward … and forward (the case ran close to two years), Jackie’s “aw shucks” persona begins to make an impression on the jurors — one woman even calls him “cute” — and what appeared to be an open-and-shut case for the prosecution suddenly looks like it could swing either way.
Diesel delivers an impressive performance that will surprise those who pegged him as a one-dimensional action hero, and the supporting cast is peppered with sharply etched characterizations. And knowing that most of the courtroom banter is based on actual testimony from the case also fuels our enjoyment. Yet Lumet’s sympathies repeatedly tug against the natural grain of the story. Jackie may be an amiable loudmouth but he’s still a criminal, and the hard-nosed head of the mob family (Alex Rocco) clearly belongs behind bars. Meanwhile, Sean Kierney may be presented as an overzealous prosecutor not above making life uncomfortable for Jackie, but there’s no indication that he’s anything but a decent man trying to make our society a better place; he’s even allowed one behind-closed-doors tirade about the evils of the Calabrese family, indicating that he’s sincere and not merely a blowhard pimping for the cameras.
Lumet has always been sympathetic not just to good cops (Serpico, Prince of the City) but also to small-timers who simply got in over their heads (the hapless bank robbers in Dog Day Afternoon). Maybe he places Jackie DiNorscio in that second category. Or maybe he really is subtly offering his picture as Exhibit A in the case against the dim-wittedness of jurors. If that’s the case, fine; if it’s not, then find me leery.
Lucky Number Slevin
This year’s Sin City is one thin ditty, a hollow exercise in hipster chic that once again proves (as if more evidence was required) that the Pulp Fiction bandwagon has not only run its course but jumped off the track some while ago. Sin City escaped wanna-be status by virtue of its genuine pulp fiction origins (graphic novels by Frank Miller) and a startling visual scheme; Lucky Number Slevin, on the other hand, is the sort of convoluted, twist-packed yarn that strains to be unpredictable but is actually even easier to figure out than those Jumble puzzles that appear in the dailies. Director Paul McGuigan presumably was confounded by the “surprises” when he first read Jason Smilovic’s script, but alert audiences won’t be fooled for a nanosecond.
Josh Hartnett, cinema’s favorite lightweight, plays Slevin, a seemingly guileless guy who finds himself caught in a power struggle between two rival crime lords (Morgan Freeman and Ben Kingsley). Bruce Willis is on hand as, natch, the taciturn hit man who turns out to be more involved than he initially appears. Hartnett would seem hard-pressed to carry a basket of laundry, let alone carry a motion picture, while the three reliable vets seem almost bored trying to keep up with the plot’s changes of direction.
The movie’s saving grace is Lucy Liu: Cast as a chatty neighbor who helps Slevin piece together the mystery, she’s a breath of fresh air in a genre that too often suffocates on its own fumes of pungent testosterone.
Basic Instinct 2
Like sharks, film critics are known for their fast and furious behavior when they pick up the scent of blood emanating from a weakened prey, and recent mega-turkeys like Gigli, Catwoman and Battlefield Earth have each led to a feeding frenzy of grotesque proportions. I predict Basic Instinct 2 will have the same effect on the nation’s movie scribes — yes, it’s really that terrible — but let me preface by offering a positive word about Sharon Stone.
While many reviewers (to say nothing of Razzie Award voters) consider her a miserable actress, I can honestly say I would require all four fingers and the thumb of one hand to count her memorable performances. That number includes her fine work in last summer’s Broken Flowers as well as her star-making performance as the ice pick-wielding author Catherine Tramell in the 1992 smash hit Basic Instinct.
But what Hollywood giveth, Hollywood taketh away, meaning that the role that made her an A-lister might now be the same role that effectively kills her struggling career. In BI2, Stone is simply awful, replacing the sexy insouciance from the first film with a beady stare that would seem more appropriate coming from a dead codfish than a calculating nympho adept at playing twisted mind games. This needless sequel — badly photographed, flatly directed, indifferently acted, wretchedly scripted — finds Catherine mentally sparring with a psychiatrist (David Morrissey) she’s planning to both screw and screw over. There’s plenty of raunchy sex talk, but the only thing I found shocking about Basic Instinct 2 is that it siphoned 115 precious minutes out of my life — time better spent smashing those fingers and thumb with a hammer.
This article appears in Apr 5-11, 2006.
