What the hell? — Liam Neeson starring in a cigarette commercial

Liam Neeson
Preview for “Run One Night” — being shown on television

 

This blew me away.

A new movie is coming out in March called “Run All Night.” It looks like yet another cookie-cutter Liam Neeson “I have a particular set of skills” hitman violent thriller (Seriously, are these the only movies Liam Neeson is going to make from now on?).

It’s rated R, has plenty of gunplay, I’m sure plenty of violence and bad language, so I really don’t care if there’s smoking in the movie. But, in the trailer for the movie, being shown regularly right now, it has Liam Neeson prominently featured with a cigarette in his mouth.

What the eff, Warner Brothers? Seriously? It seems like it could have been pretty easy to exclude the “hey, smoking makes you a tough guy bad ass” cigarette commercial from the preview showing repeatedly on regular television … when lots of kids will see how cool Liam Neeson looks with a gun and a cigarette.

I get that it’s an R-rated movie (gratuitous smoking is only supposed to be allowed in R-rated movies now), but regular television programming is not R-rated. When they took the smoking out of PG and PG-13 movies, they also need to make sure to take the smoking out of the previews being shown on TV.

I know it may seem petty to some people, but this really ticked me off. It was a long, bruising and at times exasperating battle to get smoking out of Hollywood movies marketed to kids, and apparently we’re still fighting this battle. You’re not going to show the F-bombs and blood splatters on television previews — cut out the cigarettes, too.