The con is on…
The H-Bomb: Career con artist, Nicky (Will Smith), a true master of his craft, takes on an attractive young protege, Jess (Margot Robbie), as he carries out an elaborate score in New Orleans. The job goes well, and everyone on Nicky’s team makes out like a bandit, but his relationship with Jess becomes an issue when he realizes he’s developed genuine feelings for her. Knowing that personal relationships can be dangerous in his line of work, Nicky pays her off and more or less ditches her on the spot, with no explanation.
Cut to three years later, Nicky is down in Buenos Aires planning a new job. It’s a car racing scheme of some kind (the details aren’t terribly important) that seems simple enough, but that becomes far more complicated when he sees that his would be mark, Garriga (Rodrigo Santoro), is dating Jess, of all people. Even though Jess insists that she is no longer in the confidence game, it seems like one hell of a coincidence that she would just happen to be there. The question of whether or not Nicky can trust her becomes even more clouded when he starts to develop feelings for her, all over again.
Ah, good old February, that time of year when hardly anything new comes to the theaters, and when something does, it’s usually not worth the time or trouble (or expense) of going to the theater to see it. Fancy seeing a Will Smith film here. He was, after all, the undisputed king of the Fourth of July weekend. Then After Earth happened, and his box office track record was tarnished. He is still quite the charismatic chap, however (when he’s not being directed by M. Night Shaymalan), and it’s his effortless charm that carries this slight-yet-satisfying caper flick.
When I think of movies set in the shady but fascinating world of con men, my mind runs to such gems as The Grifters, House of Games, and The Sting. While Focus doesn’t quite stand alongside those great films, as light entertainment, it gets the job done. Sticking to the con movie formula of nothing ever being what it seems, the film piles on twist on top of twist on top of twist, as the true breadth of Nicky’s various schemes are revealed. Complicated but never confusing, and often rather amusing, the revelations are sometimes clever, and sometimes downright unbelievable. More on that in a moment.
Written and directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, the screenwriters behind the notorious Bad Santa, Focus has the same foul-mouthed sensibility that made that Christmas comedy the infamous classic that it is. As anyone who reads my stuff regularly can tell you, I have no issue with so-called dirty language, but in this film, it didn’t seem at all necessary. Perhaps Ficarra and Requa figured that having the characters swear like sailors would spice up their rather bland caper plot, yet all the potty-mouthery just feels forced and out of place. Again, I have no fucking problem with harsh fucking language, I just found it kind of fucking distracting. Fuck.
The other big strike against Focus is, as I touched on earlier, its lack of believability. I know this isn’t a documentary, and that suspending disbelief is required to even moderately enjoy a film like this, but even taking that into account, there were several points where I found myself either face-palming, or saying, “Oh come on!” to myself, or both. So many of Nicky’s plans are left to impossible chance, yet work out so perfectly, that they became impossible to swallow. The part where he subliminally tricks one of his victims into picking a certain number really had me wondering if this thing was going to turn into science fiction.
As much crap as I’m giving Focus for it’s lack of credibility, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it. Smith is basically doing his typical thing here, but he does it so well that I can’t complain. Matching him is Robbie, who made a splash in 2013’s The Wolf of Wall Street, and nearly walks away with this movie. Not only is she Goddamn gorgeous, she has terrific chemistry with Smith, and makes for an engaging femme fatale. Adrian Martinez scores some hearty laughs as Nicky’s hefty partner in crime, and BD Wong has a short but exceptional appearance as a high stakes gambler in the film’s standout sequence.
Clocking in at a slim hour and forty minutes, Focus breezes by and goes down pretty easy. I didn’t really believe most of what I saw, though I did have fun with all of it. It will never go down as a modern masterpiece, and in about a year’s time it will probably be forgotten, but as far as Will Smith vehicles go, I have seen worse. Overall, Focus is a disposable caper that’s entertaining enough to warrant the price of a matinee ticket.
