Focus (2015)
Directed by Glenn Ficarra
Nicky, an accomplished con artist, gets romantically involved with his disciple Jess but later ends their relationship. Years later, she returns as a femme fatale to spoil his plans.
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The whole encounter suggests that writer-director duo Glenn Ficarra and John Requa have studied not only how con men operate, but also the best of the genre (having already supplied one of its looniest entries with “I Love You Phillip Morris”), channeling the sultry, smooth-jazz vibe of Steven Soderbergh’s “Out of Sight” from the opening scene.
There are two ways of seeing "Focus": as a slick, derivative con man movie starring a typically debonair Will Smith that channels the labyrinthine schemes and accompanying jubilance found in everything from "Ocean's Eleven" to "Out of Sight" — or as the worst movie yet from Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, the writer-director pair behind "I Love You Philip Morris" and "Crazy, Stupid, Love."
(The way cinematographer Xavier Perez Grobet often shoots them—sitting opposite each other at a table in an opulent setting, bathed in sultry light—is reminiscent of the Steven Soderbergh classic “ Out of Sight ” in ways that surely can’t be a coincidence.)
Directors Glen Ficarra and John Requa are making a Steven Soderbergh’s Greatest Hits Mixtape here, borrowing Out of Sight‘s sexy frissions along with the Ocean’s knack for somehow making things suspenseful even though they’re going exactly according to plan.
One scene borrows brazenly from the crackling seduction scene in Steven Soderbergh’s Out of Sight, but here the sexiness is slightly synthetic, a corporate pastiche.
They desperately want Focus to have the cool, hip vibe of a movie like Ocean’s 11 or Out Of Sight, but the mixed tones destroy any chance of that happening.
But really, Focus is more about the sensation of having your wallet lifted by a pickpocket with nimble fingers; as Herbert Marshall tells Miriam Hopkins in 1932’s Trouble In Paradise , the definitive romance-among-thieves comedy, after she takes his wallet, “You tickled me.”
When it turns out she’s in the game herself it leads to a couple of amusing scenes including one that–for film buffs with long memories–may recall the “meet cute” in “Trouble in Paradise” (1932).
My first suggestion would be to check out Ernest Lubitsch’s “Trouble in Paradise,” a 1932 comedy that asked and answered that exact question.
Being both beautiful people, it only makes sense that they would wind up in bed together after picking each other’s pockets (in an unearned allusion to the great Ernest Lubitsch’s 1932 screwball gem Trouble in Paradise).
A romantic caper stocked with con artists, good looks but little sizzle, Focus is no Trouble in Paradise, House of Games or The Grifters.
This comic thriller begins as a twist on the classic crime romance “Trouble in Paradise”: two smooth grifters, the veteran Nicky (Will Smith) and the novice Jess (Margot Robbie), pick each other’s pockets and thus seal a partnership made in heaven.
There are two ways of seeing "Focus": as a slick, derivative con man movie starring a typically debonair Will Smith that channels the labyrinthine schemes and accompanying jubilance found in everything from "Ocean's Eleven" to "Out of Sight" — or as the worst movie yet from Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, the writer-director pair behind "I Love You Philip Morris" and "Crazy, Stupid, Love."
Overall, Focus might not match the sophistication of Ocean’s Eleven or the passion of The Thomas Crown Affair, but it’s an enjoyable enough distraction whose only real major letdown is an unnecessarily twisty ending.
From the start it promises more than it can deliver, mixing tones of screwball comedy romance with “Ocean’s Eleven” caper movie flourishes.
No amount of slight of hand or Ocean’s Eleven style heists could fol you, but boy does this film try to do just that.
The other 70 percent a con man film in the Ocean’s Eleven or Duplicity mold; glossy, neon-lit images; beautiful people in luxe costumes; screwball comedy-esque battle-of-the-sexes banter; endless double- and triple-crosses.
It’s yet another reminder that if it’s not called “The Sting,” you shouldn’t get too comfortable with a con-game movie.
It swivels logic and loyalties when necessary, borrows from better cinema scams like The Sting, and plays everyone for suckers.
In the con-artist genre, filmmakers come up with winning hands when they pair the right cast with unexpected double-dealings, as in George Roy Hill’s “The Sting.”
Con-job movies delight by diagramming in detail the workings of the scams, by having fun with the camaraderie of the partners in crime and by righting some wrong (such as taking down a villain like the one played by Robert Shaw in “The Sting”).
You have, in dozens of better movies, from "The Sting" to "The Grifters" to the "Ocean's Eleven" series and "American Hustle."
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The movie gives off something reminiscent of old caper romances like Charade, How to Steal a Million, A Fish Called Wanda, the Ocean’s movies, and the underrated Duplicity, in which Julia Roberts and Clive Owen keep their con going so long that what they’re left with is each other.
Contemporary audiences are less likely to be reminded of Charade and To Catch a Thief than that other Grant wannabe, George Clooney, in the Oceans movies, but it’s a change of pace.
On the most basic level, the con-artist romance Focus is a Cary Grant movie in the North By Northwest or Charade mold.
Smith frankly doesn’t seem all too happy throughout “Focus”—he certainly doesn’t manage the sort of charm that Cary Grant brought effortlessly to a similarly convoluted piece like “Charade.”
Contemporary audiences are less likely to be reminded of Charade and To Catch a Thief than that other Grant wannabe, George Clooney, in the Oceans movies, but it’s a change of pace.
Since Focus conjures up a more relaxed time in Hollywood history, when the top stars radiated their golden appeal in romantic comedies about duplicitous souls, writer-directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa might have dreamed of Cary Grant and Grace Kelly, who paired in Alfred Hitchcock's 1955 To Catch a Thief.
They set Focus up in the manner of Hitchcock's To Catch a Thief or North By Northwest .
A cover version of “The Windmills of Your Mind,” best known as the theme song of the classic 1968 con-artist flick “The Thomas Crown Affair”?
The movie's main selling point is an ambience of affluence, personified by Smith, who glides across the screen as smoothly as Steve McQueen in "The Thomas Crown Affair," wrapped in various sleek outfits and sports cars.
This is a movie, an amusement, not some somber statement about the con game a la 1990’s The Grifters or any number of outside-the-law dramas.
While movies about conmen are nothing new, Focus takes a different approach than something like The Grifters or others since it’s built around the romantic chemistry between Smith and Robbie, both good-looking actors who have a substantial amount of charm.
When it comes to con flicks it's more Oceans Eleven without the famous ensemble cast than say The Grifters.
You have, in dozens of better movies, from "The Sting" to "The Grifters" to the "Ocean's Eleven" series and "American Hustle."
See “The Sting,” “House of Games,” “The Grifters.”
A romantic caper stocked with con artists, good looks but little sizzle, Focus is no Trouble in Paradise, House of Games or The Grifters.
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The movie gives off something reminiscent of old caper romances like Charade, How to Steal a Million, A Fish Called Wanda, the Ocean’s movies, and the underrated Duplicity, in which Julia Roberts and Clive Owen keep their con going so long that what they’re left with is each other.
More recently, 2009's Duplicity, itself a terrific comedy-drama about corporate espionage starring Julia Roberts and Clive Owen, offered even more twists and as much excitement, though it remains criminally under seen.
It aspires to the likes of the grotesquely underrated Julia Roberts-Clive Owen-starring “Duplicity”: a con movie in which professional liars fall for each other and only wind up wondering if they really can love at all.
Smith and Robbie can’t hope to capture the warm antagonism of a couple like Clive Owen and Julia Roberts in the criminally underrated Duplicity, but Focus still fits in the pantheon of films featuring conning couples.
The first half grooves like a lounge and pops like a good bubble; the second half rolls patiently, lacking the consistent zip of something like Tony Gilroy's excellent take on potentially romantic deception, "Duplicity."
For every "Ocean's 11," there's an audience flop, such as "Duplicity" with Julia Roberts and Clive Owen, that gets one too many steps ahead of the audience, while relying on the stars.
Unfortunately the film overall can’t match wits with “Ocean’s 11”…the schemes here are ridiculous and not that fun, and thus “Focus” leans heavily on Smith to charm us solo for two hours.