-Thank You for Smoking recently opened in St. Louis. The film stars Aaron Eckhart as lobbyist Nick Naylor, the chief spokesperson for Big Tobacco.

Naylor is the face of an industry that blatantly lied to the American people for years, an industry whose product results in the deaths of more than 400,000 Americans every year and an industry that deliberately targeted young people to try and get them addicted at an early age. And yet, even though he champions a cause that most of society sees as supremely evil, Naylor is a sympathetic character. He tries to reconnect with his son, who sees him only as the figure reviled by the media.

This is not a redemptive story, however. Naylor’s attempts to take a more active role in his son’s life consist of bringing him along on his trips to sell his product to the public.

The fact that his product destroys people’s lives does not seem to bother Naylor.

He actually enjoys the challenge of defending the indefensible.

“Michael Jordan plays ball. Charlie Manson kills people.I talk,” says Naylor of his talent toward his job. Neither the film nor Naylor try to defend their lifestyle. He is no role model, clearly saying that his job requires “a certain moral flexibility.” Overall, the film is a good comedy, but it lacks any sort of heart or real message. On one hand, I think that this a strong point. It would have been easy to show Naylor as wanting to atone for his sins in the end, having a change of heart and turning his life around. But the movie stays true to what the real Naylor would probably do: he stays a lobbyist, most likely of questionable masters.

On the other hand, I feel that the film misses an opportunity to highlight the disturbing influence lobbyists have on our lawmakers. The film shows no donations of soft money or using money and benefits to woo congressmen; its one scene of using money to influence a public figure is bribing a former spokesperson’s silence after he get cancer. The more recent scandals involving Jack Abramoff and the office of Tom Delay show that the real danger with lobbyists is not their ability to talk or spin the truth, but their intimate relationship with members of Congress and how they are able to push their legislation through by using campaign contributions and gifts.

Thank You For Smoking was filmed before the Abramoff scandal broke, but even so, this problem has been clear for a long time.

This film, though enjoyable, could have served to highlight a serious problem in American politics. This would have led to a departure from the slick, straight comedy that made the film funny. It would have been a much darker, more frightening scenario. A frightening truth that our elected officials, the people that we have chosen to look after us and serve us in government, oftentimes are serving the interests that can contribute to their campaigns the most rather than the interests of the American people.