Review of Thank You for Smoking (2005) by Riren — 28 Jan 2007

One of the funniest movies in years, Thank You For Smoking makes its points and pricks everyone with them. Almost every role is immaculately casted, especially the leads, with the actors providing the right doses of sympathy, frustration and venom along the offensively hilarious plot.

The tobacco industry's lies and doubletalk are only the premise from which larger-than-life characters rise to entertain through surprising exercises in lack of compassion, egomania and the occasional exhibition of real human weakness.

Best, Thank You For Smoking doesn't hate anyone involved in its subject matter. Like Kevin Smith's Dogma, it is humanistic enough to entertain, even at the expense of its themes - and this ultimately gregarious notion makes a more profound statement about the treatment of tobacco in modern society than scathing films like Crash do about bigotry.