"Thank You for Smoking": It's ... Tobacco Man

The handsome Aaron Eckhart has a face that looks as if a computer designed it. The individual pieces are all a bit much, but the overall effect works surprisingly well; it's over-the-top but believable, like good satire. His jaw is absurdly square, his nose long and aristocratic, his eyes are small but glitter intelligently.

He's just the face to sell a slightly iffy proposition — and he's perfectly cast in Jason Reitman's clever satire "Thank You for Smoking" as tobacco lobbyist Nick Naylor, a man who wouldn't dream of apologizing for what he does for a living. Defending tobacco, he notes proudly to his young son, requires "a moral flexibility that's beyond most people."

Reitman's movie, based on the novel by Christopher Buckley, is snappy and bright; it clicks as smoothly as an expensive cigarette lighter. While it's full of funny one-liners — many of which have, alas, already been featured ad infinitum in the movie's trailer — the film finds much of its humor in its rich assortment of characters. With the exception of Katie Holmes, less than believable as a hotshot journalist (after playing a less-than-believable hotshot lawyer in "Batman Begins," is she making a tour of all the professions?), all are perfectly cast, giving the movie a nicely populated feel.

William H. Macy plays Nick's nemesis, a Birkenstock-wearing anti-smoking senator from Vermont who's determined to bring down tobacco. In his office, filled with bottles of maple syrup, he plots the enemy's downfall; you can see a sort of wild-eyed frustration in him, as if he can't believe that what he's doing is even necessary. Robert Duvall purrs smoothly as mysterious tobacco giant The Captain; Rob Lowe is blissfully slick as a Hollywood superagent happy to work with Nick on bringing more tobacco to the movies, even sci-fi. (Cigarettes in space? It's "the final frontier.")

J.K. Simmons employs his trademark — and very funny — yell-it-out-fast delivery as Nick's boss at the Academy of Tobacco Studies. And Maria Bello and David Koechner bring world-weary deadpan to the roles of Nick's best buddies — lobbyists for alcohol and guns, respectively. They are the MoD Squad, the Merchants of Death, and over drinks they regularly engage in good-natured competition as to how many deaths their clients have caused.

But this is Eckhart's movie, and his Nick preens in the spotlight; a man who's learned to make a living from his own firm yet flexible convictions. "Thank You for Smoking" is a rarity in movies these days: a film cheerfully taking on a controversial issue (note, though, that nobody in this film ever actually smokes) and sending up both sides. It's a gleeful exploration not so much of smoke but of spin.

Reitman, still in his 20s, knows something that many more seasoned directors never figure out: how to make audiences laugh along with a film that's laughing at itself. (And that's laughing at us — particularly in a devilish final scene.) We may not need "Thank You for Smoking" to snicker at lobbyists, but it's a welcome gift anyway.

Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com