One of the world's most charismatic and entertaining actors, after a lengthy stint with less than desirable roles as either cameo appearances or performances less than appealing, has once again graced us with a leading role alongside one of Hollywood's biggest up and coming actresses. The result is a crime drama/romantic comedy titled Focus, written and directed by both Glenn Ficarra and John Requa. With A-list superstar Will Smith and Wolf of Wall Street newcomer Margot Robbie, does Focus pull you in, or are there one too many distractions?
The story finds Nicky Spurgeon (Smith) enjoying life as a conman extraordinaire, when he runs into Jess Barrett (Robbie) attempting to enter his world of swindling and thievery. After a successful 'trial period' Spurgeon is hesitant in making any emotional connection, in spite of overwhelming evidence to support his feelings. As the years go by a major con comes into the works surrounding a billionaire race car owner, and the question of who's conning whom becomes increasingly difficult to answer…
Firstly, the primary element of Focus that captures sheer brilliance all-round is the intense, sexy and completely undeniable chemistry between it's leading actors; Robbie and Smith feel real together; the attraction is there, the trust (or lack thereof) is there and most importantly, the audience is never 100% certain of whether or not the conversations are genuine emotionally or simply bold faced lying. This makes for intense watching with a serious sexual edge to it that most 'rom coms' of the day just can't seem to capture. You genuinely want them to be together but you also have no idea if they truly want it themselves, or if they are simply looking for the ultimate payday. As the finale comes around questions are answered and emotional connections are decided, but the combined brilliance of Smith and Robbie makes for an giddily enjoyable watch.
With that in mind, the individual performances of Smith and Robbie are both completely brilliant. Smith, for the first time in years, has an excellent script that can keep up with him and compliment his charisma beautifully. The dialogue feels improvised and natural, which is perfect for Smith. As a criticism however, this is very much a Smith style film; no jumping out of comfort zones here, but a great return to form overall for the comedic, chilling, maxing, relaxing-all-cool superstar Fresh Prince. Robbie, much like in WoWS, has a great dialectal pallet with which to sink her teeth. She has very quickly found herself nearing A-list status and deservedly so. She's beautiful, sexy, strong and intensely focused (pun not intended) in her performance; she brings charisma, realism and sincerity to her character which is ironic given the nature of her character and the film as a whole. Overall a fantastic duet to watch.
The supporting cast are exceedingly entertaining too. BD Wong is enormously entertaining as a high stakes gambler in a beautifully intense betting scene set at the Superbowl. Rodrigo Santoro is hilarious as Spurgeon's partner in crime. All the cast have moments to shine and it's nice to see, though this is very obviously intended to be the Smith/Robbie show, and rightfully so. Overall a great cast of actors chosen to fill out this world of money, thievery, deceit and trust issues… A LOT of trust issues!
Another thing that I wasn't expecting is the excellent direction and cinematography of Ficarra/Requa. They have done a great job with the visual style of the film. With the story focusing (again, pun not intended) on misdirection and distraction, the camera shots do justice to that, providing some really clever/trippy shots. Some of the direction is super smooth, though they would have a very tough time competing with the exceptional direction of Selma's Ava DuVernay or Birdman's Alejandro González Iñárritu. Nothing is stand out in terms of originality or serious artistic experimentation, but the key ingredients are all there to give a visually thrilling movie.
My primary criticism with this film is a small one, but one that is worth noting. As the film comes closer and closer to the finale, there are a lot and I mean A LOT of turns regarding who's conning whom. While this works for the most part and is continuously done with flair and pace, it does lose steam quite a bit in the final moments and the ending, to me, loses any real sense of truth; while this is a clever move with regards to keeping us on our toes after the credits role, a film with so many turns and twists needs some solid closure. The story itself gives us that, but the feeling of uncertainty after so many turns and changes is a little souring in an otherwise very well executed story.
Overall Focus is a very enjoyable film. The lead performances of Will Smith and Margot Robbie are worth the price of admission alone, alongside a great supporting cast. The direction is smooth and at times very clever, the script is outstanding, the story (minus a few bumps) is solid with a good build to a very convincing and enjoyable finale that would have benefited from slightly fewer twists and turns.
No misdirection here, Focus definitely captured my direct attention.
The story finds Nicky Spurgeon (Smith) enjoying life as a conman extraordinaire, when he runs into Jess Barrett (Robbie) attempting to enter his world of swindling and thievery. After a successful 'trial period' Spurgeon is hesitant in making any emotional connection, in spite of overwhelming evidence to support his feelings. As the years go by a major con comes into the works surrounding a billionaire race car owner, and the question of who's conning whom becomes increasingly difficult to answer…
Firstly, the primary element of Focus that captures sheer brilliance all-round is the intense, sexy and completely undeniable chemistry between it's leading actors; Robbie and Smith feel real together; the attraction is there, the trust (or lack thereof) is there and most importantly, the audience is never 100% certain of whether or not the conversations are genuine emotionally or simply bold faced lying. This makes for intense watching with a serious sexual edge to it that most 'rom coms' of the day just can't seem to capture. You genuinely want them to be together but you also have no idea if they truly want it themselves, or if they are simply looking for the ultimate payday. As the finale comes around questions are answered and emotional connections are decided, but the combined brilliance of Smith and Robbie makes for an giddily enjoyable watch.
With that in mind, the individual performances of Smith and Robbie are both completely brilliant. Smith, for the first time in years, has an excellent script that can keep up with him and compliment his charisma beautifully. The dialogue feels improvised and natural, which is perfect for Smith. As a criticism however, this is very much a Smith style film; no jumping out of comfort zones here, but a great return to form overall for the comedic, chilling, maxing, relaxing-all-cool superstar Fresh Prince. Robbie, much like in WoWS, has a great dialectal pallet with which to sink her teeth. She has very quickly found herself nearing A-list status and deservedly so. She's beautiful, sexy, strong and intensely focused (pun not intended) in her performance; she brings charisma, realism and sincerity to her character which is ironic given the nature of her character and the film as a whole. Overall a fantastic duet to watch.
The supporting cast are exceedingly entertaining too. BD Wong is enormously entertaining as a high stakes gambler in a beautifully intense betting scene set at the Superbowl. Rodrigo Santoro is hilarious as Spurgeon's partner in crime. All the cast have moments to shine and it's nice to see, though this is very obviously intended to be the Smith/Robbie show, and rightfully so. Overall a great cast of actors chosen to fill out this world of money, thievery, deceit and trust issues… A LOT of trust issues!
Another thing that I wasn't expecting is the excellent direction and cinematography of Ficarra/Requa. They have done a great job with the visual style of the film. With the story focusing (again, pun not intended) on misdirection and distraction, the camera shots do justice to that, providing some really clever/trippy shots. Some of the direction is super smooth, though they would have a very tough time competing with the exceptional direction of Selma's Ava DuVernay or Birdman's Alejandro González Iñárritu. Nothing is stand out in terms of originality or serious artistic experimentation, but the key ingredients are all there to give a visually thrilling movie.
My primary criticism with this film is a small one, but one that is worth noting. As the film comes closer and closer to the finale, there are a lot and I mean A LOT of turns regarding who's conning whom. While this works for the most part and is continuously done with flair and pace, it does lose steam quite a bit in the final moments and the ending, to me, loses any real sense of truth; while this is a clever move with regards to keeping us on our toes after the credits role, a film with so many turns and twists needs some solid closure. The story itself gives us that, but the feeling of uncertainty after so many turns and changes is a little souring in an otherwise very well executed story.
Overall Focus is a very enjoyable film. The lead performances of Will Smith and Margot Robbie are worth the price of admission alone, alongside a great supporting cast. The direction is smooth and at times very clever, the script is outstanding, the story (minus a few bumps) is solid with a good build to a very convincing and enjoyable finale that would have benefited from slightly fewer twists and turns.
No misdirection here, Focus definitely captured my direct attention.