Jakeline and I saw this movie on Friday. I don’t know if it’s in wide-release yet. But let me tell you – great film. I thought all of the acting in it, including the kid’s, was pretty good. The story was fun and interesting.
I was surprised that I didn’t find any threads on this already. I’m curious to know what other folks thought. I’m particularly curious to know how other smokers felt about the film. I’ve never smoked, so my opinion is probably biased.
I particular enjoyedThe scene with the Marlboro Man.
Also, I hadn’t found any trivia available on the film yet, but I want to know how many different brands of cigarettes people can name from the opening credits.
I just saw it this weekend, with a couple of smokers (I am not) and we all thoroughly enjoyed it. I think it is honest and straightforward, making the point that the cigarette companies are slimy a-holes, but we live in a free sociey and slimy a-holes aside peoiple essentially have the right to kill themsleves with cigarettes.
I saw it at SXSW and loved it. Aaron Eckhart was absolutely great as an extremely charismatic, but not completely sympathetic character. Or I guess he was sympathetic, but not necessarily good. The whole movie was very funny - there were several times during it where you couldn’t hear a line because everyone was still laughing at the last one. I’ve been telling all my friends they should go see it once it is in wide release.
It’s been about two weeks since I’ve seen it, but I don’t recall the kid being in a huge amount of the movie. There were several different scenes, the main one being the business trip to California that he went with his dad on. It’s possible I’m misremembering and the kid was in more though, since it’s mainly Aaron Eckhart that I remember from the movie.
Quite a bit, more than Holmes, Bello or Koechner. In fact, other than Nick Naylor, I think he has more face time than any other character. In the book, he didn’t tag along to California or the Senate hearings.
Whenever the director had to choose between a faithful adaptation and a tidy 90-minute feature, he chose the latter, even to the point that they blew Naylor’s signature phrase, “Where are the data?” While the first half of the movie is pretty true to the spirit of the book, the whole story after Nick’s abduction changes wildly. Some disappointments:
Nick doesn’t go to jail or even face indictment. He doesn’t hook up with Maria Bello’s characte5r at the end. Koechner’s character doesn’t have a hook for a hand. His boss’s secretary and the Katie Holmes character were basically combined into one person. The California masseuse becomes a stewardess instead. The whole retribution from Big Tobacco disappears. My favorite scene, where the headmaster from his kid’s school hits him up for tobacco money, was cut. Instead of going on to ju-jitsu the neo-puritans from a consumer advocacy position at the end, Nick just goes freelance and shills for a different dangerous industry and apparently learns nothiing from his adventures.
There was one actual improvement on the book:
As a result of the nicotine patch incident, which in the book has few lasting consequences, Nick can never smoke again.
We thoroughly enjoyed it, roll on the floor laughter. The “dream sequence” after the kidnapping that was like an airline safety video, but about a hotel fire cracked me up altogether.
Interesting that no one is actually seen smoking: only the General, who just chews on a cigar.
I thought it was entertaining but not particularly cohesive. Having read the book a few years ago, I was looking for more of a, y’know, narrative. Rather than a collection of amusing vignettes.
Not that this is a necessary part of my movie-going experience, but I never got the sense that anyone learned much of anything or otherwise grew as a person over the course of the movie. Except, arguably, Nick’s kid, who learned how to channel the dark forces of argument just like his dad.
I liked it – and I especially liked Aaron Eckhardt, Maria Bello, and David Koechner – but I wouldn’t recommend it to my friends.
Would those of you who have both seen the movie and read the book recommend that I go ahead and read the book? I’m now intrigued by what was apparently left out of the movie.
The director was at SXSW and explained about this.
Apparently the scene was at the end of a reel, with a fade out to black right before it, so the projectionist at Sundance thought that the fade out was the end of the reel, and went to the next reel. Once everyone found out that a sex scene was somehow cut out, the rumors started about the Scientologists or the Mormons cutting it out and that Katie Holmes was completely naked and it was explicit and all these other things that weren’t true. All that was in the scene was Aaron Eckhart and Katie Holmes “humorously humping” as the director put it.
I’m sure the director is getting tired of having to explain what happened over and over again, but he could hardly ask for better word of mouth publicity. More people are talking about it than they probably would have otherwise.
Funny…I had heard about the issue, but I completely forgot that it was related to THIS movie while I was watching it. Definitely not worth anyone’s attention, but hey – if it helps the film, great.
the book is very good. mr. buckley def. has a fantastic insider’s view, and isn’t afraid to write it all down.
the characters evolve. you enjoy the pure evilness of some and hope good things happen to others. you can pick out people you know, who are just like the people in the book.
my fav. lines are the aforementioned “where are the data?” and “it pays the mortgage”.
mr buckley is a good writer. i did enjoy his " no way to treat a first lady". he does have a way with characters that should be very unsympathetic…
In the right hands, this movie could’ve been as good as The Player or Jerry Maguire. Anyone else get the feeling that young Reitman only read the first half of the book?