The movie “Thank You for Smoking” is primarily about the job and actions of the main character, Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart). Nick Nelson is a lobbyist, the vice president and spokesperson of The Academy of Tobacco Studies. His job is to acknowledge people of the research and findings about the effects of cigarettes. The company is financed mainly by tobacco companies and they claim to have found no defective linkage between smoking and major diseases. But what they actually do is that they speak on behalf of cigarettes, thus Nick’s job primarily focuses on promoting and encouraging cigarette usage. He tells people that everyone has their own freedom to choose whatever they wish to explore. If people can venture out to explore chocolates, why not cigarettes? He is a man who has a talent for talking and convincing people against all odds. He is the man who kills 1200 people every day and is proud of his work. Nick also has a son, Joey Naylor, who lives with his mother. Nick failed to live up as a decent father since he is a person hated by all, but still he manages to get his sons appreciation when he shows him his work and explains his job.
When his company discovers that they are losing teenage customers, Nick even develops a plan to bribe movie stars to smoke in a movie so that it will be seen as cool and teens would be once more attracted to smoking. Soon with permission from higher authority, i.e. The Captain (Robert Duvall), he initializes his plans makes a deal with one of Hollywood’s top agents. Everything was going great for him. Even the skull and bone warning on cigarette pack campaign brought out by his worst critic Senator Finistirre posed no threat to him. But out of the blue, Nick gets kidnapped, and his kidnappers aimed to make him suffer for his deeds. They attach nicotine patches to his whole body and set him free. The number of nicotine patches attached could have killed him, but by some miracle he survived