Thank You for Smoking | ★★★★★★★

Sometimes a Netflix recommendation really surprises you. Such is the case of this pretty funny 2005 movie satire about the Lobbying and Tobacco Industries. To give you a flavor of what you can expect let me share this dialog that big tobacco lobbyist Nick Naylor has with Hollywood celebrity agent Jeff Megall:

Jeff: Sony has a futuristic sci-fi movie they're looking to make.
Nick: Cigarettes in space?
Jeff: It's the final frontier, Nick.
Nick: But wouldn't they blow up in an all oxygen environment?
Jeff: Probably. But it's an easy fix. One line of dialogue. 'Thank God we invented the... you know, whatever device.'

I think this interchange with Nick's son Joey says it all:

Joey: ...so what happens when you're wrong?
Nick: Whoa, Joey I'm never wrong.
Joey: But you can't always be right...
Nick: Well, if it's your job to be right, then you're never wrong.
Joey: But what if you are wrong?
Nick: OK, let's say that you're defending chocolate, and I'm defending vanilla. Now if I were to say to you: 'Vanilla is the best flavour ice-cream', you'd say...
Joey: No, chocolate is.
Nick: Exactly, but you can't win that argument... so, I'll ask you: so you think chocolate is the end all and the all of ice-cream, do you?
Joey: It's the best ice-cream, I wouldn't order any other.
Nick: Oh! So it's all chocolate for you is it?
Joey: Yes, chocolate is all I need.
Nick: Well, I need more than chocolate, and for that matter I need more than vanilla. I believe that we need freedom. And choice when it comes to our ice-cream, and that Joey Naylor, that is the defintion of liberty.
Joey: But that's not what we're talking about
Nick: Ah! But that's what I'm talking about.
Joey: ...but you didn't prove that vanilla was the best...
Nick: I didn't have to. I proved that you're wrong, and if you're wrong I'm right.
Joey: But you still didn't convince me
Nick: It's that I'm not after you. I'm after them.

If you like smart and funny you might like this movie. Aaron Eckhart was simply brilliant as the amoral lobbyist.. his character's interchanges with his son were confounding and revealing.. in a very smart and satirical way. The movie is R-rated, has a few risque scenes and a few F-bombs - so watcher beware.

On a scale of 10 I give this movie ★★★★★★★