History Film / ThankYouForSmoking

* ZeroPercentApprovalRating: Arguing for an industry that is seen as a killer doesn't make you very popular. [[{{Reconstruction}} Nick more or less accepts this]] and it makes his job more rewarding when he succeeds.

* ColdTurkey: Nick's doctor says he can never smoke a cigarette again because all the nicotine patches nearly killed him and he's in frail health. This doesn't help Nick's mood towards the end of the movie.

* MajorInjuryUnderreaction: Surprisingly, Bobby Jay, while fighting Panamanians.

** Joey himself seems to be learning from his father, as he able to get him mom to let him go to Los Angeles by exploiting a few insecurities of hers.

* MeaningfulName: In the director's commentary Reitman mentions a conversation with Buckley about [[AdaptationDecay the things he got wrong in the film]]. One of them is that Senator Finistirre's name is supposed to be pronounced ''[[ItIsPronouncedTroPay finis terre]]'' instead of Finister. It's French for [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast 'End of the World'.]]

-->'''Nick:''' He's been researching tobacco for thirty years and hasn't found any conclusive evidence linking cigarettes and cancer. This guy's a ''genius''. The man could disprove ''gravity''.

-->'''Bobby''': For a man, big tits on a reporter are ''always'' relevant.
* MushroomSamba: After Nick is [[spoiler:forcibly made to wear dozens of nicotine patches, he passes out into a hallucinatory dream where he imagines himself starring in a house fire safety video.]]

* PragmaticAdaptation: The movie forgoes many of the book's subplots and the final series of plot twists, instead focusing on Naylor's relationship with his son and his rivalry with Senator Finistirre.

* ReassignedToAntarctica: Heather Holloway, who is discredited after Nick makes various veiled public comments about her unethical tactics as a reporter. In the WhereAreTheyNow epilogue, the last time we see Heather, she's providing news coverage in the middle of a massive storm in the middle of nowhere.

* SouthernGentleman: The Captain gives off this vibe with his white suit, Southern accent, and many riches. The PoliticallyIncorrectVillain [[CorruptHick angle]] is also subtly hinted: All his waiters? Black.
* SmokingHotSex: [[InvokedTrope Invoked]] when Nick suggests that Jeff the movie producer include a scene where Creator/BradPitt and Creator/CatherineZetaJones light one up together after fucking in [[ZeroGSpot zero gravity.]]

* TooDumbToLive: Nick becomes this when he receives a death threat from an anonymous caller during a TV interview. Although he's rattled, Nick refuses to receive a bodyguard or protection, saying that it would ruin his image of being a man of the people. (Yes, this is lampshaded that this is really dumb.) Sure enough, he gets kidnapped and nearly murdered by a nicotine patch overdose.

-->'''Polly:''' ''Baby seal poacher.''

** [[spoiler: In the end, Nick ignores whatever financial compensation to work for BR after he threw him under a bus, finding his self-respect more important than "a mortgage to pay]].

* GoodSmokingEvilSmoking[=/=]SmokingIsCool: The entire movie and book are built on [[DiscussedTrope discussing these tropes]].
** The movie itself doesn't have any smoking at all, surprisingly.

* HerrDoctor: Dr. Meisenbach. In the movie, his name is the hilarious Dr. Erhardt Von Grupten-Mundt, who could "disprove gravity".

* InformedAttribute: They say Nick is a heavy smoker but you never see him smoking. We did, however, see him trying to smoke, only to find he ran out of them.
* InformedAttractiveness: When Nick inquires about a reporter from the Washington Probe during his weekly "Merchants of Death" dinner, Bobby pointedly mentions that "she has world-class tits". Heather, while by no means an ugly woman, is played by the modestly endowed Katie Holmes.

* {{Jerkass}}: Jill, Nick's ex-wife. She gets uppity when Nick tries to spend time with their son- she seems to think that, since he defends Big Tobacco, he's obviously going to tie their son down and force him to smoke at gunpoint. At one point she basically says to him "Why would he want to hang out with you when he could hang out with Brad?" (Joey's stepdad).

* KarmicDeath: Inverted [[spoiler:when some anti-tobacco activists kidnap Nick and try to overdose him on Nicotine Patches, it's his lifetime of smoking that gave him the resistance to fight it. It does become a CoolAndUnusualPunishment though, as he can never smoke again on pain of death.]]

* KnightTemplar: [[spoiler: [[WellIntentionedExtremist the kidnappers]]]] in the movie and Senator Finistirre in both, to an extent, who is also a ManipulativeBastard.

* LittlestCancerPatient: Finistirre's aide on the opening talk show attempts this, bringing with him a guest teen who's gone bald from smoking-induced cancer. However, it backfires when Nick's testimony is suave enough to even persuade the kid. Finistirre later chews out his aide for bringing a bald but otherwise healthy-looking teen.
-->'''Finistirre''': "And where in the hell did you find Cancer Boy? ... When you're looking for a cancer kid, he should be hopeless! He should have a wheelchair, he should have trouble talking, he should have a little pet goldfish he carries around in a ziplock bag. Hopeless!"

* EverybodySmokes: Strangely, this is mostly averted in the film. The only character ever to be seen smoking is The Captain.

* EveryoneHasStandards: The reaction to Nick's speech to his colleagues at the MOD Squad after his HeroicBSOD.

-->'''Nick:''' I'm just tickled by the idea of the gentleman from Vermont calling me a hypocrite, when the same man in one day held a press conference where he called for American tobacco fields to be slashed and burned, and then jumped on a private jet and flew out to a farmyard where he rode a tractor on-stage as he bemoaned the downfall of the American farmer.

* RealityEnsues: Nick, BR, and their company can hide the issue from the public as much as they want, but they can't stop [[spoiler:The Captain from dying of lung cancer.]]

* ZeroPercentApprovalRating: Arguing for an industry that is seen as a killer doesn't make you very popular. [[ReconstructedTrope Nick more or less accepts this]] and it makes his job more rewarding when he succeeds.

* AcceptableTargets: InUniverse, when the movie producer tells Nick that only three kinds of people still smoke in the movies nowadays: [[FunWithAcronyms RAVs]], or [[DirtyCommies Russians]], [[TheWarOnTerror Arabs]], and [[GoodSmokingEvilSmoking Villains.]]

* DrinkOrder: The Captain and mint juleps. [[spoiler:Nick puts a glass on his grave in the novel, one of the club's waiters does it in the movie]].

* AdaptationDistillation: The book and the movie are such substantially different animals that it's almost hard to believe anyone on the crew actually read the book (although the movie is still a worthy product in its own right: TropesAreNotBad). Many elements of the plot have been reduced, rearranged or cut out entirely, which creates a completely different narrative. There are too many examples to list here, but the biggest example is the kidnapping. In the book, it takes place at the beginning and is hugely important to the plot, and is eventually revealed to be [[spoiler: a plot by BR to get good publicity and get Nick out of the way, allowing Janette to take his place.]] In the movie, it takes place at the end but still mark a point in the sense that [[spoiler: even after his near death experience, and the fact that he can never smoke again due to all the nicotine patches the kidnappers forced onto him. Nick doesn't discourage people to smoke.]] So the message of the film still stand: choice is the most important thing.

* BrokenAesop: For all Nick talks about people being education being important, this entirely glosses over how he repeatedly spoke in the past claiming outright lies about cigarettes and even promoting scientists to essentially change facts that people could be educated by.

* DrinkOrder: The Captain and mint juleps. [[spoiler: Nick puts a glass on his grave in the novel, one of the club's waiters does it in the movie]].

* {{Expy}}: In the book, the lead guy who kidnaps Nick resembles Creator/PeterLorre to the extent that he is simply called "Peter Lorre" for the rest of the book.

** The first lobbyists in question? [[spoiler: The cell phone industry over (again) cancer claims]].
* HerrDoctor: Dr Meisenbach. In the movie, his name is the hilarious Dr. Erhardt Von Grupten-Mundt, who could "disprove gravity".

* KarmaHoudini: The guys that [[spoiler: kidnap and try to kill Nick are presumably never caught.]]

* LawyerFriendlyCameo: Book only. Lady Bent is clearly modeled on UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher.

** Averted in the book with Oprah Winfrey, Larry King, and others.

* PietaPlagiarism: Featuring Nick and [[spoiler: Abraham Lincoln, after Nick is kidnapped]].

* ReallyGetsAround: Nick in the book, to the point where Reitman apologized to Eckhart in the commentary for removing so many of those scenes.

* RealityEnsues: Nick, BR, and their company can hide the issue from the public as much as they want, but they can't stop [[spoiler: The Captain from dying of lung cancer.]]

* StealthCigaretteCommercial: From the book, "Everything your parents told you about '''smoking is right'''".

->''"You know that guy who could pick up any girl? I'm him -- '''[[ThisIsYourPremiseOnDrugs on crack]]'''."''
-->-- '''Nick [[MeaningfulName Naylor]]'''

* GunNut: Bobby Jay, the firearms industry spokesman, is packing multiple firearms. Also a bit of a HeroicComedicSociopath, with Nick noting that Bobby joined the National Guard after witnessing the Kent University riots, as he wanted to shoot at college students too. Instead, he got sent to fight Panamanians, who shoot back.

* AffablyEvil: Nick earns his living by defending and promoting cigarette companies, but he's a devoted father and rather charming and likable man.

* AlliterativeName: Nick Naylor.

* ManipulativeBastard: Nick Naylor. He can make the anti-smoking lobby look like hypocrites and opportunists, and make the tobacco industry look like a loving family that looks out for its own.

* InformedAttractiveness: When Nick inquires about a reporter from the Washington Post during his weekly "Merchants of Death" dinner, Bobby pointedly mentions that "she has world-class tits". Heather, while by no means an ugly woman, is played by the modestly endowed Katie Holmes.

* AcceptableTargets: InUniverse, when the movie producer tells Nick that only three kinds of people still smoke in the movies nowadays: [[FunWithAcronyms RAVs]], [[DirtyCommies Russians]], [[TheWarOnTerror Arabs]], and [[GoodSmokingEvilSmoking Villains.]]

* AcceptableTargets: InUniverse, when the movie producer tells Nick that only three kinds of people still smoke in the movies nowadays: [[FunWithAcronyms RAVs]], [[DirtyCommies Russians]], [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror Arabs]], and [[GoodSmokingEvilSmoking Villains.]]