In a world where movies have gotten longer, with Avatar: The Way of Water, Babylon, John Wick: Chapter 4, The Batman, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and RRR each clocking in at over two hours and forty minutes long, Quentin Dupieux continues to make the best 70-minute movies. His latest 76-minute absurd farce, Smoking Causes Coughing, may be one of his most inconsistent films. Still, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a hell of a time watching highly-talented actors star as a Power Rangers-esque superhero team called the Tabac Force.

The Tabac Force’s mission is unclear, though they use the deadly powers of tobacco to defeat their enemies, with each hero named after an element found in a cigarette: Nicotine (Anaïs Demoustier), Benzène (Giles Lellouche), Methanol (Vincent Lacoste), Mercure (Jean-Pascal Zadi) and Ammoniaque (Oulaya Amamra), under the tutelage of Chef Didier (Alain Chabat), a rat who consistently drools acid on his mouth while talking. Before defeating their next enemy, Lizardin (Benoît Poelvoorde), who threatens to destroy planet Earth, which he describes as “sick,” the Force goes on a retreat, to which they tell themselves scary stories that aren’t necessarily terrifying for audiences, but morbidly funny.

Smoking Causes Coughing Has Weird Vibes

If you didn’t like any of Dupieux’s previous works, chances are you won’t like Smoking Causes Coughing. His style of comedy is extremely narrow-minded and presents extremely odd vibes throughout his short runtimes. Instead of making the audience laugh through thoroughly absurd situations, Dupieux will consistently craft characters as frustrating as possible and draw the comedy from that inherent frustration. This was apparent in films like Keep An Eye Out! and Deerskin, and it’s still going strong in Smoking Causes Coughing.

One story stars Adèle Exarchopoulos and focuses on a couple discovering a 13th-century helmet and becoming possessed by its spirit. It’s weird and ends in a puddle of impressively-crafted gore. Another story involves a man whose legs are stuck in a wood shredder. What do these stories have to do with smoking? They don’t, but Dupieux manages to link smoking in all of their stories. It’s not explicitly about smoking, but you still won’t want to pick up a cigarette after watching this.

The Gross-Out Humor Serves As An Implicit Reminder That Smoking Is Bad

To prevent a younger generation from smoking, most government bodies delivered one gross ad after another, showing the negative effects of cigarette smoking. Dupieux takes a different approach – instead of directly showing what smoking does to you, he metaphorically grosses out the audience in more ways than one. He peppers his imageries with characters and stories that resemble the body slowly poisoning itself with cigarette smoke. As such, Smoking Causes Coughing is one of the most, if not the most, effective anti-smoking advertisements of all time. 

It doesn’t always work. Of course, there will always be smokers, but the film’s core is terrific. The performances from Lellouche, Amamra, and Poelvoorde (always a treasure) are incredible. They’re the ones who lean the most in the film’s incessant absurdity and deliver gut-bustlingly hilarious performances. Dupieux is an acquired taste – he will not be for everyone, and many have criticized his style and approach to comedy. But if you’ve ever liked one of his movies, don’t miss Smoking Causes Coughing. It’s a total hoot, which will hopefully make any smokers stop immediately. At some point, to discourage a child from smoking, a member of the Tabac Force says, “Smoking sucks. It causes coughing.”

It causes more than that, but that’s a valid reason to quit. Who likes coughing? No one. Quit now.

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