Warner Brothers released its latest flick on Friday, titled Focus, starring Will Smith and Margot Robbie. The film told the story some of us have all seen almost one too many times — the classic tale of a con man that falls for the apprentice, only to see his mastery crumble before him because he caught a bad case of love.
But this purely cheap entertainment was what enticed me to see this film.
Chemistry between characters, catchy con scenes and sexy banter made this film undeniably fun to watch. Yet, its sporadic tangents and overwhelming twists and turns somehow made my viewing experience ‘unfocused’.
Focus caught my attention from not only the storyline but also the ludicrous couple playing its romantic leads.
I had seen Robbie’s previous work in The Wolf of Wall Street, knowing that her role of Jess would be a perfect fit for the 24 year-old Australian actress. On the other hand, Smith is an actor who has been around the block quite a few times, but has sort of gone off the grid for a while before appearing in Focus.
However, both the age difference and the look of the couple together somewhat turned me off.
According to iMDB, the film had been re-casted multiple times, with the roles originally being offered to actors like Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, Brad Pitt and Ben Affleck. At multiple points throughout the film, I could understand why these big stars turned down the opportunity.
Just how the voices in songs weigh heavily in our opinion of them, casting can make or break a film. In this song, the voices did not harmonize well.
I enjoyed the performances from both actors separately — but together, their love story bored me. The underlying message I gathered from it was that loyalty between con artists and liars does not substitute for a healthy relationship. But that wasn’t exactly news to me.
The film had a handful of wildly entertaining scenes that kept the audience on the edge of their seats, but I left the theater only remembering the bad ones, or how sappy some the twists were.
Stories of con artists tend to be popular in film and TV — we love the tricks of not knowing how the con artist can practically get away with murder. This story had potential, but the conning, the lying and the stealing pushed the writing into a tight corner, leading to a sub-par ending and leaving us to wonder if the writer had simply run out of ways to con the audience into enjoying the story.
Overall, it was okay. But would I suggest paying to see it in theaters? Probably not. You might want to wait for Redbox or Netflix on this one.