Movie Review: Focus

Too many twists and turns lead to an unsatisfying payoff.

By Jerlin Huang

PHOTO: Warner Bros. Pictures

Focus

Comedy, Drama, Crime [NC16]
Will Smith, Margot Robbie
105 min

There is an art to getting people to trust you. It’s all about intelligent lying, never revealing the con and experimenting with smart deception — until it isn’t such a smart move anymore. As the third feature from the writer-director team of Glenn Ficarra and John Requa of Crazy, Stupid, Love fame, Focus starts off with clever misdirection, but ultimately winds up failing to satisfy.

Focus follows the story of Nicky Spurgeon, a smooth-talking veteran con artist who builds his riches through picking pockets and carrying out small-time scams with clever diversion techniques. Naturally, Spurgeon never allows anyone to get too close, for there is no room for emotion in this game.

Enter Jess Barrett, a novice swindler who impresses Nicky and quickly earns a place in his pickpocket crew. Focus then embarks on a reverie-inducing visit to a host of exotic countries, documenting two monumental heists within a three-year time period.

Despite being billed as a romantic movie, the relationship between the two main leads is ironically one of Focus’ weakest points. The issue here is not their lack of chemistry, but rather the volatile link between the two that changes with every plot juncture and — by the end of the movie — appears to be feebly set up. The use of convenient plot devices becomes glaringly conspicuous, especially when Nicky and Jess run into each other too easily after being apart for three years.

Nevertheless, Will Smith convincingly pulls off the role of a cool, expert con man with his solemn acting, abandoning his comedic state of mind seen in films like Hitch and Men In Black. The spotlight, however, shines brighter on co-star Margot Robbie, who provides a more compelling performance. The lively actress greatly makes up for the plot’s lack of substance with her brilliant and captivating acting, as well as her versatility to effortlessly switch from subtle comedic settings to more dramatic scenes.

Despite having its fair share of strengths and occasional intelligent surprises, Focus unfortunately doesn’t connect well as a whole. The plot quickly becomes entwined in a succession of fabrications and double-crosses that require too much effort to get out of towards the end, burning a hole in this romantic crime caper film.

Granted, Ficarra and Requa plant several astute hints along the way, but these clues are so subtle that they might only be noticed in retrospect. The script gets too caught up with its twists and turns and “it was a con all along” outcomes that enter so fast and furious, it rarely ceases being nonsense long enough for any tension to be felt.

With that said, Focus still possesses a decent amount of genuinely entertaining scenes to keep audiences occupied throughout its 105-minute duration. Both Nicky and his bosom buddy Farhad — a sarky, crude-talking gag character — dish out humorous one-liners that help to lighten the mood of the film in a refreshing manner.

Focus scrapes through with its flamboyant marketing aesthetics, the charisma of its stars and sporadically naturalistic production scenes. If the flawless con is all about diverting one’s focus, then Focus — while not quite a top-notch caper film — will ironically keep you distracted until the end.