Spinning.

Verb and Noun.

“To convey information or cast another person’s remarks or actions in a biased or slanted way so as to favorably influence public opinion; information provided in such fashion.”

“To twirl around in a circular motion rapidly.”

Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart) is the chief spokesman for Big Tobacco. His main job is to counteract all negative publicity as it relates to cigarettes and the tobacco industry. He is the their number one lobbyist, their go-to-guy in the face of opposition, the one they count on to make sure they and their product come off smelling like roses.

I’ll let you decide with definition above fits him best.

Nick’s got problems, though, his life hardly perfect. Behind the smile and the cocksure attitude, this professional talker for the number one death-dealing product in the world is starting to wonder if his chosen profession isn’t exactly setting the greatest of examples for his son (Cameron Bright). Worse, he’s starting to get death threats, real honest-to-goodness ones that might actually require his employer to hire him some protection.

But Nick isn’t worried. While life isn’t perfect, a guy has to pay the mortgage after all, and as long as he continues to love his work this smiling sycophant can’t think of a better way to do it than this.

Welcome to “Thank You for Smoking,” an obvious if still amusing satire from freshman writer-director Jason Reitman (son of “Ghostbusters” director Ian) and based on the best-selling book by Christopher Buckley. It is a light, bouncy, unapologetically acerbic comedy with an actual madman anchored firmly at its core. While it does run out of steam (and ideas) during the final act, getting there is such an entertainingly surreal adventure I can’t really say that I cared.

It helps that Reitman has Eckhart as his frontman. Nick Naylor is a part the snarky chameleon was born to play. This lobbyist is the antichrist hidden within the silken white fluff of a sheepskin overcoat. He’s Del Sizemore (“Nurse Betty”), Roland Michell (“Possession”), Brake Baldwin (“The Missing”) and that ultimate snake Chad (“In the Company of Men”) all rolled into one grinning wild man of a character. It’s a brilliantly cunning and charming turn, one of the actor’s very best, and as he’s in nearly every single scene of the motion picture that’s a very good thing indeed.

But the director also has an expert cast throwing daggers all across the screen. Rob Lowe and Adam Brody are priceless as a Hollywood studio executive and his assistant interested in helping Naylor promote smoking through cinema (featuring nude superstars blowing smoke rings in a weightless environment). Sam Elliott twists his grizzled face around the conflicted persona of the original Marlboro Man. William H. Macy bristles brilliantly as a senator fed up with Nick and the poison he peddles. Katie Holmes (who’s full sex scene was reportedly excised at the insistence of her far more famous boyfriend) sexily snakes around the persona of an investigative reporter willing to bare all to get a story.

Reitman himself shows a steady hand a gift for comedy that maybe even exceeds his famous father’s. There are times here that the satire cuts as sharply as some of the best this genre has ever offered, films like “Network” and “Citizen Ruth,” going places so uncomfortably asinine those on the Right and Left alike are almost assured to find alternately offensive and hysterical. In fact, the first half is so good, so smart, so confident, so complicated, that a person could quickly come to the conclusion “Thank You for Smoking” is going to be one of the year’s best motion pictures.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen, Reitman and company losing momentum and control as they get closer to their forgone conclusion. The tangents holding everything together start to show their seams, and the strings tying them all together during the climax is made of such flimsy material I could help but shake the feeling I could have used my long manicured fingernails to slice it right in two. While the movie doesn’t devolve into a mess, it isn’t exactly organized and coalesced into anything all that remarkable, and if it wasn’t for Eckhart I’m almost inclined to believe I’d actually have passed the whole thing off as a daring near miss and left it at that.

Thankfully, the final scene stings like a bumble bee fighting for his honey comb, and Reitman has the conviction to take Buckley’s ideas to their logical tragically funny (and uncomfortably inspired) conclusions. Holding it all together is the movie’s star, Eckhart galvanizing my attention like Adam Morrison or Brandon Roy taking over an NCAA basketball game. And, while no one in the movie is ever actually seen lighting up, there’s enough going on that’s worthwhile to say this film isn’t just hot, it’s smoking.

Film Rating: êêê  (out of 4)