Theatrical Reviews: Focus

People seem to love watching comedic crime-thrillers.  The box office gross on last years Now You See Me should be evidence enough of that.  People like snarky masterminds, thrilling plots and sudden plot twists; and what better ways to get these things than to watch a con-man, thief or gangster go all in for one last score.

So don’t be surprised when Focus, the new crime-thrillers on the block, takes #1 at the box office this weekend.  It has all the ingredients necessary for a surprise hit.  It has a popular cast, a mysterious plot, style and humor.  But unfortunately, despite its marketability, Focus is a pretty lame movie.

Does the movie have snark and humor? Yeah; and the twists are as surprising as they come.  But what Focus, like the majority of commercial films, is essentially trying to is create a captivating story; and at that it ultimately fails.

The film is all over the place.  Is Nikki, Will Smith’s character, a villain?  Is he really in love with Margot Robbie’s character or is it all a scam?  Is she scamming him?  I honestly have no idea; the movie, even at its conclusion, shows no promise of letting the audience know what is going on.  The whole point of a movie like this is that, at the end, all will be illuminated and your mind will be blown; but for some reason Focus never gets to the big finale, it never illuminates anything.  I watched the movie all the way through, and I still have almost no idea who these characters were or why we should care about them.

The actors don’t really help all that much either.  Will Smith isn’t a bad actor by any means, but he doesn’t exactly show a Fresh Prince level of charisma.  Margot Robbie does a decent job as well, but she isn’t fantastic.  These performances are serviceable, but they do nothing to alleviate the messy script above its original messiness.

Plotwise Focus is all over the map.  It establishes one plot then switches to another;  creates a central premise then abandons it completely.  This is all done in an attempt to make the story twisty and exciting; but it mostly just renders the film pointless.  And worst of all?  Many of the plot twists render previous sequences completely impossible.  The twists don’t make any sense at all.

Focus is a movie with a scattered plot, unenthusiastic characters and a terrible ending.  It never really grabs onto a good protagonist, antagonist or central arc.  It fails to be an interesting thriller, but worse than that, it fails to tell a sensical story.  It pains me to say it; but Focus lacks all focus.