This Just In: Controversy is Not a Story

Breaking News, reviewed below, is a very good film about image, public relations, and spin. Seeing as how we picked up Jason Reitman's Thank You For Smoking at the same time, and it shares themes with Breaking News, I thought they'd make an interesting double-header. I was also curious to see the film that made people forget about The Core and put Aaron Eckhart in a position that made him seem an obvious choice for the role of troubled, charismatic D.A. Harvey Dent in The Dark Night.

Well, let's just say I'm glad it came from the library, and didn't cost money - but that's still some quality Mass Effect time I'm never getting back.

Thank You For Smoking is the story of top tobacco industry lobbyist Nick Naylor (Eckhart), a charismatic smartass who describes himself as having "a B.A. in kicking ass and taking names", and who is very good at his job, which he claims to have won despite having no university education, but simply by being, well, a charismatic smartass. His job consists mostly of making people argue not about what they want to argue about, but about what Nick wants to argue about - admittedly, an effective technique. He's a master of distraction, and turning a conversation, and he lives by the maxim that if you argue correctly, you're never wrong. He also has a twelve year-old son from a failed marriage; in a nice departure from the standard, he's a good dad. Nick and Joey get along well, and love each other, and being a smartass tobacco lobbyist doesn't automatically make Nick and irresponsible, out-of-touch, deadbeat. The story is initially set up as leading toward Nick's appearance at a congressional hearing regarding the use of pictoral warning labels on cigarette cartons, squaring off against lead adversary Senator Finistirre (William H. Macy, in a throwaway role). However, before we get to that congressional hearing, we encounter Nick talking to Joey's class about his work, Nick having a fling with a reporter (Katie Holmes), Nick making inane insults about his boss, Nick visiting the head of Big Tobacco, Nick visiting the orginal Marlborough Man, and Nick being kidnapped by anti-smoking supremacists who attempt to murder him by overdosing him with nicotine patches. It's a lot to have happen, none of these adventures have a clear narrative connection, and as a result, the story is lost pretty quickly. By the time we get to the congressional hearing, it's pretty hard to care - there's no climax, because the story has no flow.

Which is a shame. In good hands, this premise could have been very interesting. Unfortunately, director Reitman seems to have coasted on the idea that tobacco lobbyists are controversial, smartasses are cool...and left it at that. Alas, controversy does not a film make. Thank You For Smoking isn't just a badly disjointed narrative, it also pulls out every visual cliche in the "I'm a hip filmmaker!" book (and quite a few verbal ones, too). The first time we meet Senator Finistirre, he's wearing socks with sandals and has an ad for Vermont cheese directly above his chair - Reitman may as well have written "I'm a dork!" in permanent marker across William H. Macy's forehead in order to achieve the same desired effect. Reitman's grasp of comedy is also as sketchy as it is lazy, as demonstrated by the direction of Eckhart's facial cues. Nick Naylor is introduced to us as a master of public relations, a master of spin, someone who's firmly in control...but the first half-hour of the film is packed with him showing every emotion imaginable on his face while talking to people he thinks are loony, or who catch him off guard. It's probably intended for comic effect, because Eckhart's expressions are quite funny; unfortunately, they make no sense, contradict the established character, and lose the film a lot of credibility right off the bat. If you need to tell the audience when something's funny, and you're directing a comedy, you're probably not doing you're job. It's also kind of insulting. It's not because Nick is the devil's advocate that I don't care about him as a character, it's because he's so inconsistent, I have no idea what his character is.

There's another major obstacle in this film: the devil's advocate doesn't actually stand for anything, at least nothing he tells the audience about. Simply being a devil's advocate doesn't make a character. There are some truly great devil's advocates in film, from Lawrence of Arabia's Prince Faisal, to Blade Runner's Roy Batty, to T1he Big Lebowski's Walter Sobchak, to The Quiet American's Alden Pyle, to Michael Clayton's, um, Michael Clayton...Nick Naylor doesn't exactly stand up to any of these. He's hollow, empty fluff. Not exactly the most effective foundation for selling - or exploring - controversy. The film as a whole has no message. It skates around a lot of issues, but refuses to actually address them. That's not open-minded, it's ineffective - and in my book, lazy and cowardly, too.

The film does have a few interesting aspects. Nick's son isn't the caricature of the precocious pre-teen, and is for the most part a character in his own right, which is welcome. And in an interesting turn - though, again, not really sure what kind of point Reitman's trying to make here - Senator Finistirre is not a Republican, and the liberals and lefties Nick lobbies for are headed up by a southern Colonel Sanders clone so white and old-fashioned conservative that he spends his days at a men's smoking club, waited on by his black manservants. But these tempting visual cues, like all the others in this film, are never explored, or used to make any sort of comment or point, and, alas, fall meaningless.

Also, I'm pretty sure randomly calling someone a pussy isn't funny or hip unless you're under the age of sixteen, or Sarah Silverman.