When conman Nicky (Will Smith) meets Jess (Margot Robbie), an inexperienced grifter, he offers to mentor her.
Years after they first met, Nicky and Jess meet again. Nicky is involved in a new con which just so happens to involve Jess's boyfriend, a rich and dangerous motorsport owner (Rodrigo Santoro).
Is Jess still in the game? Will their old attraction return? Will they escape?
This movie makes me wonder if Hollywood knows how to make star vehicles any more.
Even more now than its time of release, Focus feels out of time.
It is a heist caper starring movie stars - at least one established and one up-and-comer. It is built on chemistry and sex appeal. The heist element is a bonus, but is mostly framework for good-looking people doing sexy things in beautiful places.
For its first half, Focus makes a good stab at being that movie.
Smith and Robbie have good chemistry and the movie has a sense of fun and style as she learns the ropes.
If the movie had continued in this direction it would have been great. It would have been a soufflé but there is nothing wrong with that.
And then the movie teases some drama that could have worked: Smith is a recovering gambler who gets drawn into an escalating game of one-upmanship with a tycoon (BD Wong). He ends up betting all of the crews’ haul and it looks like the movie is setting up for a story about a super-successful man who has to wrestle with his demons.
Nope. It turns out to be another con, and the movie spins out in a completely different direction with no clear motivations or stakes.
The movie ends up being really unsatisfying. It does feel like you could split the movie into two uneven halves -the first sexy and fun; the second a more leaden and serious caper that is not that interesting.
The main issue is that the filmmakers lose control of the tropes of con artist movies, and it makes it hard to track what the real story is.
The weaknesses of its second half are compounded by the BD Wong interlude, which feels like a clearer set up for a darker storyline, but with an opportunity for redemption: Smith would lose the crew’s money and then have to come up with a new con to get his friends’ money back.
I could not get over a feeling deja vu as the movie spiralled. A day after watching Focus, it hit me. Focus reminded me of another movie starring Will Smith that felt like two halves that did not work together, either dramatically or tonally.
Like Focus, Hancock starts as a comedic spin on a familiar genre - and then halfway through it completely changes tack and completely undoes whatever good will the first will had developed. It is a strange and unfortunate echo.
In the end, Focus does not follow its own rules and provide a clear focus on its story.
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