Jason Reitman is smart, puckish, and thoroughly delighted with his first feature film, THANK YOU FOR SMOKING. He should be. The adaptation of Christopher Buckley’s skewering of politics and political correctness is a perfect reflection of its writer/director.
There is something to offend just about everyone in THANK YOU FOR SMOKING, even foodies, and that’s a compliment. This is a smart and witty delight that, perversely, for all its broad humor has the sort of subtlety to never once show anyone actually lighting up. Satire well done, as it is here, may be the most lethal form social commentary. It is certainly the most entertaining. The film stars Aaron Eckhart, Maria Bello, Robert Duvall, William H. Macy, Cameron Bright, J.K. Simmons, and David Koechner.
When we spoke on February 14, 2005, he was psyched about kicking off his press tour in the Bay Area and the conversation included how he landed the option for the novel that everyone wanted, what it’s like to have the finished film become the object of a bidding war, and a promise to him by a representative of the NRA that wasn’t kept.
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