NICK Naylor (Aaron Eckhart), the charismatic chief spokesman and spin doctor for Big Tobacco, is delighted when Washington reporter Heather Holloway (Katie Holmes) arranges to interview him for a profile piece; the publicity could offset the threat posed by opportunistic senator Ortolan Finistirre (William H Macy), who is spearheading a campaign to have "Poison" stickers positioned on the front of all cigarettes.

Nick hopes Heather might be impressed by his current campaign to glamorise smoking on the big screen.

To this end, Nick ingratiates himself to Hollywood super-agent Jeff Megall (Rob Lowe), who can magic up a new film with Catherine Zeta-Jones, Brad Pitt and a pack of 20 - for the right price. How far is Nick willing to go to get the whole world to inhale?

Based on Christopher Buckley's satirical novel about the culture of spin inside the multi-billion dollar tobacco industry, Thank You For Smoking is a wickedly funny portrait of one man's shameless abuse of the system for his own ends.

Writer-director Jason Reitman navigates this high-powered, high profit world of carefully manipulated facts and figures with aplomb, creating a loveable rogue in his anti-hero, played with effusive charm by Eckhart.

The film cuts a swathe through all of its targets, poking merciless fun at the entertainment and tobacco industries. The dialogue crackles with polished one-liners and put-downs.

Nick's appearance in front of a congressional hearing chaired by Finistirre is hysterical, with the spin doctor somehow using rhetoric to question dairy exports from the senator's home state.

"The great state of Vermont will not apologise for its cheese!" splutters the politician. Wonderful stuff.

Damon Smith