I decided to watch Thank You for Smoking because it stars Neil LaBute’s golden boy and everyone’s favorite anti-hero, Aaron Eckhart, and features (not enough) Maria Bello. I don’t think that satire is for me. Everyone gets to play their favorite bad guy of choice as if they were purveyors of freedom and make the seemingly good guys (in this case, journalists, doctors and progressive politicians) the villains. Thank You for Smoking’s greatest sins are making enthusiastic and gymnastic sex seem joyless and perfunctory and punishing the woman for being ambitious and sexual by relegating her back to acceptable gender roles as a weather girl. In the end, what does Thank You for Smoking accomplish? Was there character development or a real journey? Not really. The main character always loved his son. He moves on, but doesn’t change the spirit of his original mission statement. It makes the bad guys likable, and the good guys fallible. So people are people. Watch Thank You for Smoking if you like the actors in it or satire, but if you skip it, it won’t matter.