FOCUS – The Review

To pull a successful and entertaining con in a movie is to walk a fine line between feeling sensational and realistic. You want to give the audience a sense of magic and illusion while still making them say, “Well, that could happen.” It’s perfectly acceptable not to let us in on the con, but the con shouldn’t be on the audience. When all is finally revealed, I should think that was clever, not cheap.

There was hardly a moment where I cracked a smile or even a smirk during the entirety of FOCUS – a film that seems to think it can get by on style as opposed to smarts. Fashionable clothes, luxurious cars, and exotic locales can’t help this sorry attempt for a con film. FOCUS doesn’t have an ounce of charm or charisma beneath all the flash and glamour, which is a great shame considering the talent involved. You have two successful actors in Margot Robbie and Will Smith, but even they appear confused at times and can’t help this vacuous and wasteful OUT OF SIGHT meets CONFIDENCE with a dash of CHARADE grand forgery.

An unsuccessful con pulled by newbie Jess (Margot Robbie) on a veteran of the con game Nicky (Will Smith) turns into a case of the master taking on a new protégé. From there we find out he’s actually the leader of an elite group of master thieves. They do cool tricks like saunter through the streets of New Orleans pick-pocketing 50 people in a matter of minutes through expert choreography that would make Cirque du Soleil envious. A working relationship quickly blossoms into much more, but just as the two let their guard down, Nicky calls it off. Years later while working a new con job in Buenos Aires involving high performance racing teams, Nicky sees Jess… who just so happens to be seeing the man (Rodrigo Santoro) that Nicky is trying to hustle. Oh, what an unlucky coincidence.

Staging a good con can be fun for the audience. Seeing how they did something after the fact can provide a fun reveal letting the audience in on what they missed. Of course you feel sheepish after seeing all the clues that you overlooked in the moment, but it’s a slight-of-hand trick that I shamelessly love. This at least should be the case. The key word there is should. I never once felt like FOCUS was ever truly engaging me in the con either during or after the fact. FOCUS was much more interested in stumping you then pulling you along to see if you can figure it all out. Clues aren’t shown throughout because there’s no way it could ever happen. The con and tricks are just too preposterous. A scene involving several escalating bets at a football game goes from effectively tense to absurd to the point that I wanted to leave the theater once the scene ended because I felt like I was being taken advantage of. How it all was pulled off is shown in such a “of course this is how we did it” manner that it defies any sense of logic. When a con film is more interested in pulling a con on the audience 30 minutes into the film then on the characters in the story, you know you’re playing with a stacked deck and most likely will continue to be for the remaining 90+ minutes.

In between ridiculous feats of luck and extraordinary coincidence, some inappropriate humor is also integrated. Because I guess my intelligence being offended wasn’t enough. These jokes mostly come from the overweight sidekick played by Adrian Martinez. Jokes about the smell of a lesbian’s breath or a women’s time of the month looking “like a crime scene down there” come out of nowhere and are distractingly crude. I can buy this type of banter from stoner kids in a Judd Apatow film or a SUPERBAD knock-off. Having said that, Martinez’s antics do lend the film some levity in parts – even if he’s mostly there though to be the punch line for a repeating colon cleanse joke. I know… really funny stuff, right?

Who does make the best of this terribly sticky situation is Margot Robbie. Her breezy manner and striking eyes punctuate scenes when she’s playing off the deadpan Will Smith. Though it should be applauded that the Fresh Prince isn’t delivering his usual shtick, his attempt at a pokerfaced George Clooney impression falls painfully flat. Any comment or question from another character is met with an empty side smirk combined with a short and monotone piece of advice. Smith is trying to play the serious ringleader when really he acts as if he’s an extra in the background.

FOCUS wouldn’t feel so helpless if it didn’t strive to be so much. Music numbers are even pulled from classic capers like the original THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR. Night scenes are capably lit with a neon glow adding to the “cool” factor achieved by the smartly dressed people and jazzy music. Where the film loses its… well… you know… is when it tries to outsmart the audience. All the confident directing in the world by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa can’t save FOCUS from feeling like a hasty cash grab masked as a clever ruse. It’s downright silly how the film struggles to be smart. By the end of this predictably simple maze, Will Smith (or some guy who looks like him but is missing the charisma and easy laugh that made him iconic) is shown haven been put through the ringer for the con. I was left feeling the same. We both looked ready to fold and happy to walk away with whatever earnings that remained. For me, it wasn’t much.

Overall rating: 1.5 out of 5

FOCUS is now playing in theaters everywhere