Thank You For Smoking (film) - Plot

Plot

Nick Naylor is a handsome, smooth-talking tobacco lobbyist and the vice-president of a tobacco lobby called the "Academy of Tobacco Studies", which for 15 years has been "researching" the link between tobacco smoking and lung cancer. They claim that their research—funded primarily by tobacco companies—has found no definitive evidence of any linkage. Naylor's job consists mainly of reporting the questionable research of the "Academy" to the public and defending Big Tobacco on television programs by questioning opposing health claims and advocating personal choice. Naylor and his friends, firearm lobbyist Bobby Jay Bliss and alcohol lobbyist Polly Bailey, meet every week and jokingly call themselves the "Merchants of Death" or "The MOD Squad".

As anti-tobacco campaigns mount and numbers of young smokers decline, Naylor suggests that product placement of cigarettes could once again boost cigarette sales. Naylor's boss, BR, sends Naylor to Los Angeles to bargain for cigarette placement in upcoming movies. Naylor takes along his young son Joey in hopes of bonding with him. Throughout their trip, Naylor teaches Joey about the beauty of argument. Naylor is also sent to bribe Lorne Lutch, the cancer-stricken man who once played the Marlboro Man in cigarette ads and is now campaigning against cigarettes. Naylor offers Lutch a suitcase of money for his silence. When Lutch refuses, Naylor suggests he should publicly announce the bribe and say that he's using the money to start a charity for cancer victims—but adds that in that case he can't use any of it to help his own family, because he will seem like a hypocrite. Naylor's argument convinces Lutch to take the hush money for his family.

Senator Finistirre, one of Naylor's most vehement critics, is the promoter of a bill to add a skull and crossbones POISON warning to cigarette packaging. During a televised debate with Finistirre, Naylor receives a death threat from a caller. Despite the threat, Naylor still plans to appear before a U.S. Senate committee to fight Finistirre's bill. Naylor is then kidnapped and covered in nicotine patches. Awakening in a hospital, he learns that the very high nicotine tolerance level resulting from his smoking has saved him from death by nicotine poisoning, but now he is hypersensitive to nicotine and can never smoke again.

Meanwhile, Naylor has been seduced by a young reporter named Heather Holloway. During their steamy fling, the besotted Naylor tells Holloway all about his life and career—information that she happily publishes in an exposé that appears just after the kidnapping. Her article relentlessly bashes Naylor and his work, exposing Lutch's bribe, the product-placement scheme, and the MOD squad as well. It accuses Naylor of training his son Joey to follow his amoral example. All public sympathy due to Naylor's kidnapping evaporates, and Naylor is fired by BR.

Naylor falls into depression until Joey helps him recall the integrity in his job of defending corporations that almost no one feels deserve a defense. Rejuvenated, Naylor tells the press about his affair with Holloway and promises to clear the names of everyone mentioned in her article. He also declares that he will still appear before the Senate committee. At the hearing, Naylor admits to the dangers of smoking but argues that public awareness is already high enough without extra warnings. He emphasizes consumer choice and responsibility and, to the dismay of Senator Finistirre, claims that if tobacco companies are guilty of tobacco-related deaths, then perhaps Finistirre's state of Vermont, as a major cheese producer, is likewise guilty of cholesterol-related deaths. At one point, Finistirre asks Naylor if he would condone his son smoking cigarettes after he turns 18. Naylor hesitates, then responds, "If he really wants to smoke, I'll buy him his first pack."

After being impressed by Naylor's speech, which results in a vote against Finistirre's bill, BR offers Naylor his job back, but Naylor publicly refuses to work for his backstabbing boss. Holloway, publicly humiliated by Naylor's confession of their affair, is reduced to working as a local weather girl. Soon afterwards, Big Tobacco settles claims of liability for smoking-related deaths at a huge cost, the "Academy" is dismantled, and Senator Finistirre begins working to have cigarettes digitally removed from classic films. The MOD Squad still meets weekly, now with the addition of lobbyists for fast food, hazardous waste, and oil drilling. In the footsteps of his father, Joey wins a school debate using lessons his father taught him. Naylor opens a private lobbying firm, in which we see him continuing on the same path, guiding a trio from the cellphone industry concerned about claims that cellphones cause brain cancer.

The film ends with Nick's narration: "Michael Jordan plays ball. Charles Manson kills people. I talk. Everyone has a talent. "