It opens tomorrow with “Thank You for Smoking” — a half-winded effort penned — well, keyed in at least — by famous son Jason (son of Ivan) Reitman based on a novel by Christopher (son of William F.) Buckley.
This soft effort surely will softly sink out from sight, vanishing almost as swiftly as “Brokeback Mountain” did from the shores of Pinehurst, another couldabeen, wishithad. Remember the gnashing, bitter teeth and dark laughter of films like “Dr. Strangelove”?
Don’t expect anything like that here. In Strangelove days the target was nuclear. In “Thank You,” Reitman sets his sights on those lame duck villains, tobacco, big business, and (ho, hum) guv’ment and lobbyists.
Satire demands risk. The humor of good satire needs to ride a knife edge, but Reitman’s safety razor’s dull, just can’t cut it.
You’ll enjoy a zinger now and then, but you’ll find the whole show too soft, too tame, and far from being up to the massive collection of talent Reitman lined up.
Besides Aaron Eckhart as lead, you’ll find glimpses, sometimes more, of Robert Duvall, William H. Macy, Sam Elliot, Rob Lowe, Maria Bello, Katie Holmes, and Cameron Bright. That’s roughly in ascending order of screen time.
Thanks to that lineup, you can expect more than a laugh or too — but the basic premise of the picture (how to be a good father when you have a sleazy job) deserves more, would have supported more, and had people (Macy and Lowe particularly here) who could have delivered some real punch.
But the punches are pulled. Too bad. Good idea. Could have been a contender. Could have been a knockout.
Maybe Reitman should have taken more note of his dad’s earlier efforts like “Stripes,” or the first “Ghostbusters.”
The senior Reitman has turned out little of note as director in some 15 years — nothing really since 1990s “Kindergarten Cop,” though he has “Super Ex-Girlfriend” set to come out midsummer. Title and release date may be all the review you’ll need to miss that one.
There is a lot better, much more biting satire in “V for Vendetta” — which is not really a satire at all, but an action/adventure thriller future flick with satiric edge.
Set in 2020 London, “Vendetta” has the balance right: satire and parallels to current affairs are there to serve the story, not the other way around.
It’s a dark cross between a “Zorro” and a “Munich.”
The letter V in the title is the Roman numeral for five, and refers to Guy Fawkes and his gunpowder plot of Nov. 5, 1605. Fawkes planned to blow up Parliament, but was discovered in time to prevent his terrorist act — and the day is celebrated every year in England with fireworks, people parading in Guy Fawkes masks, and revels.
There is a hero/antihero here, in such a mask, known as V — and a crescendo of explosions building to the climactic final battle to be expected from apocalyptic fiction. Its cinematic sisters are comic books and graphic novels (where its story began two dozen years ago) — but at heart “V for Vendetta” is an idea film, with ponderable, sometimes troubling, thoughts flashed in memorable moments on screen.
Its icons are familiar: the stuff of Batman, of Phantom of the Opera, married to Burgess ire (“Clockwork Orange” — a real satire) and Matrix fight scenes.
Trouble with this material is the times we live in. Fawkes is celebrated, all right, but by being hanged in effigy every fifth of November. He’s remembered more for his incompetence than his gunpowder.
And the autumn month we think of these days is not November, but September — not 11/5 but 9/11.
John Chappell may be reached at jchappell@thepilot.com.
