Skip to main content

Focus


Starring: Will Smith and Margot Robbie
Directed by: Glenn Ficarra and John Requa
Screenplay by: Glenn Ficarra and John Requa

    Like stories about con-men?  Well, here you go.
    Nicky (Will Smith) is a con-artist.  He's good at getting people to trust him when he is not a man who should necessarily be trusted.  He can pickpocket a person without them even knowing they've been stolen from.  He can convince anyone of just about anything.  While preparing for a job in New Orleans during the Superbowl, he meets a woman named Jess (Margot Robbie).  Since there's lots of money to be made, she wants in.  After the job's been done and she knows the trade, they split for a long time.
    A few years later, they reconnect unexpectedly as Nicky is in the midst of his latest plan.  He's working for a race car team, who has developed a formula to essentially guarantee themselves a win.  They hire him to sell a fake formula to another team to make even more money.  When he sees Jess at a party with the team's owner, the plan changes.  She has turned into a femme fatale and possesses the power to distract Nicky from his job.  Will Nicky stay focused?
    The story is not laid out as well as it could be.  It can be hard to follow at some points, and seems variable in its pace.  There is a great deal of suspense in some scenes as well, especially in one scene in particular.  During the Superbowl game (Nicky manages to score tickets for Jess and he), they begin jokingly betting on random things that happen during the game.  A wealthy businessman takes note and wants to join in, and the game quickly becomes serious.  Soon, they are not just betting one dollar here and one dollar there, but as much as two million dollars.  This scene goes on for what seems like fifteen minutes, when it could have been a lot shorter.  I like that it is suspenseful, but that kind of suspense isn't necessary at that point in the movie, especially since it happens only about half an hour in.
     Will Smith and Margot Robbie make for an interesting couple.  I don't see a whole lot of chemistry between them, and for much of the time, it's not clear whether Nicky genuinely likes Jess or if he is just using her for the job at hand, plus benefits.  Either way, they do not the best of screen couples.
     Will Smith brings his usual self to the film, a cool and collected guy that everyone just wants to hang out with.  He brings an exciting style to the movie, as he does with many other of his films (Men in Black in particular).  Margot Robbie brings a style to the film that shows us that all she has to do is bat her eyelashes and smile, and she can get pretty much anything she wants.
     Overall, this isn't a terribly impressive film.  There isn't much substance and there is nothing that makes this a notable film.  My verdict: skip it.
     I give Focus a C.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Hunger Games

Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, and Liam Hemsworth Directed by: Gary Ross Screenplay by: Gary Ross and Suzanne Collins Based on the novel by Suzanne Collins      If reality television hasn't gone too far yet, then this show should definitely make it go too far.      In a futuristic nation called Panem, one boy and one girl are selected from each of the nation's twelve districts to represent them in an annual television event called the Hunger Games.  Of the 24 contestants, only one will survive in this televised fight to the death.      I like the concept of the story.  While this futuristic society seems somewhat simple, it does not seem all that well developed.  It is unknown how this society came into being, even though it is known how the Hunger Games began.      If this film were released last year, I would have hoped it would be nominated for best make-up.  Many of the characters ...
2 comments
Read more

Resident Evil: Afterlife

Starring Milla Jovovich and Ali Larter, and directed by Paul W.S. Anderson Resident Evil: Afterlife is a somewhat scary action thriller about a zombie dominated planet during present times. It's the fourth movie in the franchise. Alice (Jovovich) is the former head of security at the Umbrella Corporation, the company that created the T-Virus that accidentally escaped and turned everybody into zombies. She travels to Alaska to what she thinks is a small town called Arcadia, where there is supposedly a colony of survivors that are infection free. She is drawn by transmissions saying that they offer safety and security, food and shelter. When she arrives, nothing is there, but she picks up Claire Redfield (Larter) and travels to what once was Los Angeles where there is another colony of four survivors living atop a prison rooftop and surrounded by zombies. They find that the Arcadia is actually a ship just offshore. Can they make it to the ship? Milla Jovovich plays a very act...
2 comments
Read more

The Social Network

Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, and Justin Timberlake Directed by David Fincher Written by Aaron Sorkin    "You don't get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies."  This film is an interesting take on the historical genre.  Normally we would think of something that happened long ago, whether or not it happened in our lifetime.  "The Social Network" is interesting because it's about the violent founding of something that seemingly everyone around us uses, Facebook.    It is fantastically written and the acting was excellent, especially Jesse Eisenberg.  He plays the role of Mark Zuckerberg, an undergraduate student at Harvard University who is breaking up with his girlfriend in the very first scene of the movie.  The dialogue that Sorkin uses makes Zuckerberg sound like a pretty big jerk, especially for this first scene.  I enjoy when actors really get into their character and it's clear that Eisenberg enjoyed ...
1 comment
Read more