This movie depicts the life of Nick Naylor, chief lobbyist for the tobacco industry. Now, Nick is not a moustache-twirling evil villain bent on destroying the world, but he is only a half-step or so short of that. Here is a guy that is paid big money to lie, as in bald-faced, smiling-into-the-camera lying about the health effects of tobacco.

Except that to some extent, you end up liking the guy. That's the whole point. That's why the tobacco industry hired him in the first place. In one scene, he goes to the house of the Marlboro Man (played by Sam Elliot), now aged, sick, dying of cancer, and bitterly attacking the tobacco company that put him into the saddle with his cigarette. You see Naylor struggling with the task that's been given him: he must deliver a suitcase of money to Marlboro Man and convince him to drop his lawsuit. Except, whoops! He's not really struggling, or at least it doesn't last long, because, well his sales pitch works.

So but did I mention that the movie is hilarious? The poignant moments like the one described above (plus other scenes where you see him struggling to raise his teenaged son) are intermixed with a steady stream of over-the-top satirical humor. Quick example: Naylors only friends are the chief lobbyists for the alcohol and firearms industries (Alchohol-Tobacco-Firearms, get it?) and they refer to themselves as the M.O.D. Squad--as in, Merchants of Death.

Okay, so it's not so funny in print, but that and other tongue-in-cheek hilarity helps keep your spirits up throughout the film. In the end, you are also confronted with one of the core questions of freedom in this country: to what extent do we allow our citizens to make decisions for themselves as opposed to having the government act as babysitter?

On the way out of the theater, I noticed about three-quarters of the audience exhibited various forms of good cheer, laughing smiling, animatedly discussing the movie. The othe 25 percent sat in their seats looking grim. I'm guessing that the satire was lost on these people.