Focus (2015) (English Language)

Review

104min

Genre:    Crime, Drama, Comedy, Action

Director: Glenn Ficarra, John Requa

Cast:      Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Rodrigo Santoro…and more

Writers:  Glenn Ficarra & John Requa

A slick veteran con-man recruits a beautiful and talented young apprentice on his latest grandiose scam, his life soon becomes complicated when heart gets in the way of his most dangerous and ambitious score.

Will Smith stars as the smooth and confident grifter “Nicky” and Margot Robbie (The Wolf of Wall Street) as the beautiful young apprentice “Jess”, in what is essentially a highly stylized con/heist action-drama in the same vein as ‘Ocean’s Eleven’ or ‘Matchstick Men’.

‘Focus’ manages to, just about, effectively combine comedic and suspenseful moments within a necessarily convoluted plot to keep you engaged throughout.

Writer/directors Glenn Ficarra & John Requa manage to extend the deception and misdirection in the plot into every fibre of the characters themselves and through the screen into the audience, as with many films of this genre we the audience are the ultimate “marks” and are the ones being conned throughout the film.

Will Smith delivers another adequate if not completely convincing performance as the main grifter whilst in Margot Robbie producers have found another former Aussie-soap gem to cultivate and polish over the coming years.

For all the entertainment value in ‘Focus’, the storyline seems to ironically lose “focus” about half of the way into the film which seems to turn into a dysfunctional love-story, but remember this is a film built on deception so when things take several sharp turns we are left with an ultimately frustrating monologue-heavy, plot-explaining conclusion.

Entertaining, stylish if overly stylized, ‘Focus’ is an enjoyable if not memorable criminal love-story that keeps you guessing throughout and is better than anything Will Smith has produced in years.

‘Focus’ is released this Friday the 27th in Cinemas across the UK and worldwide.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Similar films you may like (Home Video)

Matchstick Men (2003)

Nicolas Cage stars as an experienced but obsessive-compulsive con-man whose life is thrown into disorder when his estranged teenage daughters turns up on his doorstep, with the help of his ambitious partner he tries to capitalize on the situation in this funny and misleading crime/drama from legendary director Ridley Scott.

Directed by Ridley Scott and starring Nicolas Cage, Alison Lohman and Sam Rockwell among others.

Comments

comments

Comments are closed.