Focus (2015)

Starring: Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Adrian Martinez, and B.D. Wong
Grade: B

“You die with the lie”.

Words to live by right there.

Summary

Veteran con man Nicky Spurgeon (Smith) makes reservations at an upscale restaurant. He gets turned down at the first place because they’re booked, so he poses as a famous chef on the next call and gets one. At the same restaurant, Jess Barrett (Robbie) is being bothered by some guy at the bar and goes over to Nicky to ask if he can act as her boyfriend to save her from the unwanted attention. He obliges, and they have a pleasant dinner together. Eventually, she invites him upstairs to her hotel room above the restaurant. They start making out, but Jess’s “husband” comes in with a gun and threatens to kill Nicky. Surprisingly, Nicky encourages him to do it and even talks shit to him. In reality, he knew Jess was a grifter and “made” her once he saw her steal the wallet from the guy at the bar. He offers advice to the two on how to con the right way and tells them to never let up and to “die with the lie”. Then, he leaves while laughing off Jess’s threats. Later that night, a frustrated Jess walks alone and Nicky approaches her out of nowhere because he’s been following her for a couple of blocks without her noticing. He invites her out for a drink, and she accepts. She talks about how she wants to get better at conning and how she wants to get deeper into the game. Nicky talks about how his grandfather used to run a crooked game in Harlem and how his father started shilling for him. One day, his grandfather and father got burned by a mob guy who caught them throwing signals. Everyone’s guns come out and the only way out was “The Toledo Panic Button”, which is when you shoot your partner to prove you’re not with him, though you hope you don’t kill him. Sadly, Nicky’s father is 0-3. On top of that, he killed his own grandfather.

Jess counters this with how she’s a dyslexic foster kid with no future who stumbled upon this life. Even so, she wants more and asks Nicky to tutor her. He’s not really interested but decides to show her a few tricks outside in the cold. He starts off by saying how “This is a game of focus”, magically showing how he stole her ring from right off her finger. Next, he shows the intricacies of stealing right off someone’s body by demonstrating on Jess, showing how it’s all a game in distraction and focus.

“You get their focus, you can take whatever you want”.

She’s appreciative of the quick lesson and he leaves her be.

In New Orleans, Nicky meets with his partner-in-crime Horst (Brennan Brown), and he shows Nicky a building being worked on that won’t open for another month. Because of this, they can use it for their big con. It has everything they need, including two bathrooms for Farhad (Martinez) who has irritable bowel syndrome. After we see Nicky lose at the racetrack, he goes to the Hyatt for brunch. Jess shows up with Nicky’s wallet, trying to impress him by finding him. Again, she stresses how she wants in. She even asked around in Harlem and found out that “The Limehouse Kid” is Nicky’s grandfather, Bucky Spurgeon is his father, and Nicky’s nickname is “Mellow”. Nicky insists he has a full crew, but Jess pleads with him. She cuts out all the bullshit of trying to flirt with him to prove she’s serious, but Nicky suggests she works on her allure and flirting professionally for her own sake, as she’s not very good at it. Just then, Horst comes over and Nicky introduces her to him. Nicky actually knew she was coming and set this whole thing up to her annoyance, but she’s happy to be a part of the team. Jess joins Horst and members of Nicky’s team to go on a lively street in New Orleans. This way they can test Jess, see how she follows directions, and see how she works with a team. Nicky watches from a building above them, and everyone is impressed with Jess’s abilities. Immediately after, Nicky lets her join the team officially. Right away, he lets her in on the activities in New Orleans, giving her basic information on how many people are conning in the populous city, with so many married men, tourists, and partiers looking for a good time being their biggest targets.

The stuff they do is pretty advanced too. They have found a way to easily steal information off credit cards and sneakily give them right back to the person that they stole it from. There’s also an intricate setup built by Farhad that is his specialty. It’s an identical plastic covering on top of an ATM machine, so when a card is swiped at the ATM, it records the keystrokes so you can get the pin number too. As Farhad walks it over to the car Nicky and Jess are in, Nicky tells her that a few years ago, Farhad replaced the credit card terminals at about a dozen 99 cent stores in Los Angeles and took down a few million before they caught on. He used the money to finance his own line of gravies. Anyway, Farhad gets in the car and moves Jess to the backseat. During their drive, Nicky tells Farhad that Jess is their new intern, so Farhad asks if he’s fucking her and how he would. Jess is in the car too and can’t tell if Farhad’s messing around or not.

Truthfully, we don’t know either.

Later, they get back to Nicky’s base of operations in that building from earlier, and Jess takes pictures for her new ID. Then, Nicky talks about how they have a team of around thirty, everyone gets a percentage, they cover bribes and fall money for anyone who gets pinched, they sell the ATM data to a guy in Singapore, and the shopaholics here buy merchandise, which they overnight back to themselves and resell on the gray market. As they talk around the base, they walk by some priceless jewelry and Jess can’t believe the beauty of this gaudy necklace, but Nicky insists they can’t take any chances. They have to sell everything. Jess asks about the “big con”, the one in which they can all retire off of, but Nicky says it’s more or less a fantasy. They are in the “volume business” because it’s safer that way. Just then, he asks for a stack from one of the money handlers because of his loss gambling at the track and the woman obliges. Privately, Nick gives Jess her new ID, a clean card, and a new place to stay. He decides to give her a ride there but backs out, despite their mutual flirting. Later that night, he shows up to her new place anyway, and they have sex. Sometime after, Jess is hanging with Farhad at some outdoor restaurant, and he talks about how closed off Nicky tends to be, despite them knowing each for ten years. She talks about the whole thing with his father/grandfather, and Farhad is surprised to hear this because he heard about the story from someone else, not even Nicky. Right after this, they decide to jump into their con, which is Farhad faking a heart attack to grab everyone’s attention, and Jess playing along by freaking out, allowing for all the members of Nicky’s team to rob everyone there blind during the commotion. Following Jess, Farhard, and Nicky in the ambulance afterwards discussing the success of the mission and Jess and Nicky flirting, we cut to a celebration that night at the base.

They had a record setting week. After expenses, they made $1.2 million, and they all toast. Nicky tells them that after the big game the next day, everything in the building is getting bleached down and everything not nailed to the floor will be incinerated. Horst has all their travel money, and Nicky will wire everyone their cuts once they get home. They party in the building and have a good time. Privately, Horst gives Nicky all the cash but makes him promise not to gamble it. Jess watches the conversation close by and enters the room once Horst leaves. Nicky tells Jess he’s got tickets for the Super Bowl the next day if she wants to go and she does. Just to mess with him though, she shows that she swiped the tickets from his pocket. That night, the two are hanging out and Jess asks for constructive criticism on how she’s been doing so far. Nicky admits he’s impressed by her tenacity, her ability to adjust on the fly, refusal to panic, and even thriving when the going gets tough. He tells her straight-up that he’s never seen anything like her. She’s happy but changes the subject, asking why he is called “Mellow”. He hates the name. It’s something his dad came up with. His father said there’s two types of people in this world: hammers and nails. You decide which one you want to be. He also talked about how there’s no room for heart in this game because it will get you killed. Going along with all of this, his dad called him “soft”. This is where the nickname of “marshmallow” originated which later shortened to “Mellow”.

At the Super Bowl the next day, Nicky and Jess get box seats and Nicky brings the duffel bag of cash made from their record setting week. Once they sit, Jess admits she doesn’t really like football, so he turns it into a betting game between the two. It’s playful, and they have fun doing it. The wealthy Liyuan (Wong) is close by and starts to take notice of the two and wants in. He has some fun with them, so he starts upping the ante after Jess wins one. He wants to start betting on the game, so Jess drops out. Nicky and Liyuan start betting on random parts of the game, but Nicky loses every one of them. Instead of accepting this, Nicky’s gambling addiction starts coming out. He bets $50,000 to try and win his money back, but he loses. The frustrated Nicky bets $100,000 and grabs it directly from the duffel bag. Now, Jesse is panicking and trying to convince him to stop, but he’s fixated. Nicky loses again. She tries to stop him, but Nicky puts down all the cash from the briefcase ($1.1 million) and bets it all on a game of high card. Nicky loses again. Nicky asks to double it. He tells Liyuan to take some binoculars and pick any player on or off the field, and he will guess the number. Liyuan is weirded out because of how crazy this all is and refuses. To sweeten the deal, Nicky says that Jess will guess the number instead of him. Jess is freaking out and angry as hell at Nicky but is basically forced to play. Once Liyuan picks his player, it’s Jess’s turn, and she looks through the binoculars. Liyuan gives them one last chance to back out, but Nicky insists. This leads to Jess seeing Farhad on the field acting as a player with the jersey “55” on. It was all a con set up by Nicky. She realizes it and says the number, getting it right to Liyuan’s amazement. He’s not even mad over losing the money. He’s impressed.

Nicky and Jess leave and get right into the car, and Jess can’t believe how Nicky pulled it all off. Nicky explains that Liyuan is a legendary gambler who makes cash bets on everything. He was well aware of him beforehand. They were able to get him to pick the number “55” because they have been priming him, programming his subconscious the entire day with little tricks. He’s been seeing the number all day long on chandeliers, posters, in the lobby, the pin on the doorman, etc. They even loaded his route on the hotel to the stadium, with numerous plants wearing the jersey on the route and the number just being everywhere in general, following him. It’s all been carefully constructed. It was even on the tramp stamp of the hooker they sent to him the night before, as well as on Nicky’s handkerchief. Liyuan may not notice it directly, but it was in his subconscious the entire time. It influenced his decision and pushed him in the right direction. Even “Sympathy for the Devil” played in the box seat area when he made his decision. The Mandarin word for “5” is “Woo”. There are 124 “Woo-woos” in the song, so when he made his pick, he felt it was intuition when it was actually all programmed to influence him. Jess was the convincer because she was in the dark from it all, referred to as “The Little Blind Mouse”. If he picked wrong, Nicky was going to double it until it happened. She’s amazed and kisses him. Suddenly, his expression completely changes. She’s confused at his reaction and wonders what’s wrong. They pull over, and Nicky gives Jess her cut, compliments her on her work, exits the vehicle, leaves in another vehicle with Horst, and tells the driver to take Jess to the airport.

A hurt Jess tries to ask for an explanation, but it’s done. It was all part of the plan. In the car, Nicky looks hurt himself, but it had to be done.

Three years later in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Nicky is in the midst of a much bigger con and things seem to be running as smooth as usual. To his shock however, it turns out that Jess has found her way back into his life and in the middle of it all, dating the person he’s working with.

My Thoughts:

Focus is a prime example of Hollywood finding the two hottest stars in demand and putting them together in hopes of box office success regardless of the story. The goal is simply, “We have two find a project for these two to work on”. Though the box office numbers were lower than I thought they would be, the formula still works in terms of entertainment value. Complimented by vibrant colors, a flashy style, an entertaining concept, a return to form for Will Smith and the just-entering-her-prime Margot Robbie, Focus is the escapist fun you’ve been looking for.

Films about con artists and conning others have always been a weakness of mine. The risks involved in going about these criminal acts makes every moment exciting because you never know if someone is going to get caught. Combined with a screenplay that is sure to have some twists and a certain level of unpredictability, your anxiety rises throughout the runtime as a result. The setup is intriguing too because the screenwriters (and the characters they create) have to bring the viewer into their world with detailed explanations about how they operate, why it makes sense, and how it’s all done. In a way, the goal is to “con” the audience into believing the world of the movie they have created, which is basically a bad way to describe the bare essentials of what storytelling is all about. With Focus, they do a very good job with this and write a great lead character to deliver the fun in Will Smith’s Nicky Spurgeon. With his good looks and “cool guy” aura he still had at the tail end of his forties, Will Smith revels in reminding us of the star he was in his thirties. Anytime you get a type of movie like this, they always attach the most charismatic and attractive stars possible. In doing so, no matter how criminal the acts of the character are, you still like them because of the charm of the actor/actress (in their defense, they make it a point to not rob anyone who has a cane or is in a wheelchair because it brings “bad luck”). With this in mind, it should be no surprise that Will Smith was such a great choice for the lead. Skating by on his magnetism and undeniable charisma in almost every role he’s in, Smith jogs the audience’s memory of his leading man capabilities as soon as the opening credits begin.

Make no mistake about it, if this movie came out in the decade of the 2000s, it would have been a top ten box office earner of the year and would be a regular hit on cable to this very day. This is a promise.

Focus was tailor-made for this version of Will Smith. Had it come out years before 2015, it would have been a massive hit. It wasn’t Margot Robbie that made this movie what it was, it was Smith. Place this movie in the 2000s and have Smith star with any “A-List” actress from that time period, and this is a guaranteed $200 million at the box office. The only reason it wasn’t more successful was it because it happened well after Smith’s stretch of hits and his box office power started to wane as a result. If you don’t count all the random cameos and producer credits, the last time audiences saw Smith before this was M. Night Shyamalan’s failure After Earth. With this and a period of inactivity, Smith didn’t have the untouchable factor he once had and it affected the gross of this movie, though it still made a nice chunk of change. Films like Focus put him back on track, and he followed this with Concussion and Suicide Squad. Unfortunately, it’s been up and down ever since, and he never reached the consistent success he had during his run in the mid-90s to the late 2000s. Because of this, making a movie such as this one became more of a forgotten “hidden gem” rather than one of those Will Smith movies everyone looks back upon fondly.

Regardless, the fun of Focus isn’t just found in the exhilaration of seeing how far they go to con without getting caught. The other layer added to this con artist movie is the art of sleight-of-hand trickery and how it’s the basis for a lot of these characters when they start out. Before one moves on to bigger and better things, it’s understood that this has to be mastered to the point where it comes without even trying. In an earlier scene, Nicky shows us the skill it takes to be at the level he’s at, and Smith is very convincing as he tricks the audience into watching his eyes just as he does with Jess. In doing so, he can take anything he desires including Jess’s heart.

Remember, “You get their focus, you can take whatever you want”.

It’s something Nicky lives by. Though he still gives Jess her cut after the Super Bowl incident, he still cons her to an extent because we all believed they really started to like each other, as did Jess. Everyone had us believing in the two, including lovable Farhad, played by the unsung hero of the movie in Adrian Martinez. Was this all a part of the game, or did he like her but couldn’t stay with her because of his own personal focus on his career? We’re led to believe the latter because of Nicky’s reaction immediately upon leaving her in the car. They did have a connection, but two things ring in our heads after the silence of this moment. The first is his problem with being “Mellow”. He hated the nickname his father gave him for being soft, and it seems to be a label he has always been trying to shake off as he rises up in the game and furthers his reputation as a big-time con artist. It’s this constant internal argument he has with himself that makes him this likable but flawed main character. He’s likable in the obvious ways already mentioned and because he seems like a genuinely nice guy despite his job, but his own ego won’t let him settle down with a woman he genuinely connected with purely because he doesn’t want to prove his father right. By leaving Jess and sending her to the airport without an explanation, it’s shows us that though he’s bothered by it internally, he has forced himself to be married to the game and refuses to be brought down or look weak in pursuit of his goals.

This leads us to the second thing, which is the reminder of his quote about focus. In that very moment, there’s no doubt that what he said about getting someone’s focus and taking whatever he may want because of it probably rang in Jess’s head over and over again once he dropped her following the Super Bowl job. It’s the first lesson he taught her, and he used it directly on her. How can she ever believe him? Even when he tries to get her back when they run into each other again in Buenos Aires, she’s conflicted because everything seemed so perfect the first go-around as well and he dropped her in an instant. How can she believe he wouldn’t do this again? Jess didn’t see the broken-up Nicky in the car, only we see that. She only saw the Nicky that stopped kissing her back, gave her the cut of the money she earned, and him exiting the vehicle without explaining a single thing. After three years, she’s supposed to believe Nicky has changed? As a viewer who’s privy to everything Nicky has said and done, you still can’t help but see Jess’s side. This is why even with the necklace he brings to her, you can’t blame Jess for fighting the feelings. Obviously, we want them to get back together, but you can’t help but completely understand Jess’s response to everything Nicky says or does to try and get her back. It makes for a very intriguing second act, especially once we see how grown-up and experienced Jess has become following their three-year separation of sorts. This is where Margot Robbie shines. Though she retains the humor she showed more of in the first act when she was getting used to the world she walked into, this is now a much more confident Jess. It becomes a showcase for the superstar Robbie has become following her breakout role in The Wolf of Wall Street.

Having her co-star with two of the biggest stars in Hollywood back-to-back was HUGE for her. Though she wasn’t at the level she’s at currently, the timing of Focus and being alongside Will Smith right after Leonardo DiCaprio and making both of them fall in love with her, helped exponentially in putting her on the track of being the most in-demand actress the industry has to offer today. Very likable, amusing, and ridiculously hot, Robbie does a very good job in making us believe in her abilities as a grifter. If you have someone as stunning as she is, you don’t have to suspend your disbelief too much when seeing firsthand her abilities to distract and steal. It just makes sense.

Watching Robbie’s Jess flip the script on the ever-confident Will Smith in the second half of the movie is a lot of fun to watch too. At the beginning, she’s a small-time grifter but a novice one at that. Nicky knows this and though he takes her under his wing and ends up having a relationship with her, he still uses her aloofness to his advantage, even though it hurts him doing it. With her coming back into his life because of the Buenos Aires job, Nicky is the one falling for her again as he knows the mistake he made before. He can’t keep his eyes off her while trying to stay focused on the task at hand, and it’s effecting his work performance (the “Still Got It” sequence sends you through a whirlwind of emotions once she enters the room, as it does for Nicky). Knowing she’s driving him crazy, she teases him like no other. In one of the more humorous scenes of the film, Nicky tries to convince her to run away with him and she gets close and personal with him, looking like she’s considering it. Just as he thought he won over, she jumps back and makes fun of him for falling for her new flirting techniques, proving to Nicky this isn’t the same woman he was teaching years ago. It forces him to work two games at once, but winning the girl over becomes more important than the con. Unfortunately, this complicates the overall thoughts on the narrative because where Smith and Robbie’s romance succeeds, the rest of the story kind of falters in the midst of it and takes a noticeable backseat. Succeeding at both is possible, but the screenplay doesn’t seem to care about the con, despite so much time being dedicated to showing its importance in the first half of the story. When they circle back to it in the third act, you start to realize that they didn’t do a great job with the actual job details compared to the romantic angle, and the extra couple of twists unravel the story at the end. As a result, the final product feels a little off-center.

Though criminal acts, pickpocketing and grifting are almost treated as a trade in Focus. It takes years of practice and an unshakeable level of confidence that some may never achieve, and veterans can spot the rookies almost immediately, as we see in the opening scenes where they just give us a taste of the twists and turns of this narrative. Sure, you can stay at the lower-level of robbing people by stealing jewelry or other small items forever, and it can get you a lot of money. With Nicky’s team of con artists, this is their main focus: volume. In populous cities, they do their best work and con everyone while covering every angle because of how experienced they all are in the business. Despite their unparalleled success at this, there’s also the bigger cons. This is where the twists really start to take hold. Nicky insists they don’t mess with the big-time cons, but the biggest moment of the first act has Nicky tricking Jess into helping him con a millionaire at the Super Bowl over a series of bets. At first, we fully believe in Nicky’s gambling problem because of the little instances we see early on of his tendencies in losing big money. Being the leader of his team, Horst gives Nicky all the cash, but he reminds him not to gamble with it. Not only do they con Jess into believing in Nicky’s habits, but they con the viewer. When Nicky gets entranced and continues to bet more against Liyuan and continues to lose, your stomach drops. When he puts all the cash on the table, you want to turn off the movie. This is the early hook Focus has on us. You’re never sure if everything isn’t what it seems, or if it’s simpler than you imagine. It gives off this sense of unpredictability needed for a movie like this.

Going along with this, they grab our attention further because of the attractiveness of our stars and their will they/won’t they dynamic, glamourous cinematography, beautiful locations and settings, costume design, and the exciting world Nicky has cultivated. When all of this is mixed in with the trickery in the narrative, there’s a lot of positives on the surface of Focus. It really does keep the audience on its toes at all times. Just when you thought the story was going one way, it goes another. This continues all the way to very end. Now, it can be argued that the story had one twist too many, but I’m on the fence with this one. Admittedly, it does come apart in the third act. We think the story is going into a more intricate and deeper direction, but the actual reveal is much simpler and even comedic. Though this was a bit shaky and arguably disappointing because it lessens Jess as a character, the movie has always been comedic at heart. It’s stylish, and romantic with a tinge of danger, but there was always a sense of fun and amusement regarding our two main characters, how they left each other last, and their response to seeing each other after all these years. So, though it’s not out of character to go in the direction they did, it didn’t work effectively and felt misplaced. The last half hour takes you in so many different directions that because of it, I wouldn’t be surprised if you ask yourself, “Wait, that’s it?”.

Also, considering the final twist, the scene in which Owens storms Nicky’s hotel room doesn’t make a shred of sense whatsoever in hindsight.

Besides the polarizing twists of the narrative, the lack of a real villain hurt the film big. Rodrigo Santoro’s Rafael Garriga is technically an antagonist of sorts, but he’s more of an antagonist because he’s an unknowing target. You can’t really blame him for anything he does in the movie. If anything, he got screwed and reacted accordingly. There needed to be a stronger personality on the antagonist side of things, a better written or more discernible villain, or a third star in general to muck things up and continue with the theme of never knowing where the film is going to take us. Santoro did not have a shot against whatever Will Smith’s Nicky was planning and everyone knew it. I understand that the point of the movie is to keep things centered around Nicky’s biggest job yet being screwed up because of his feelings for Jess resurfacing after running into her again, but their needed to be another hurdle for Nicky to face. Either another attractive star or a scarier villain would have made the “B Story” of the actual con much more intriguing from a storytelling perspective.

Other problems revolve around true depth in our main characters. Though they try to make us understand Jess’s perspective on things by giving us a couple of lines of her backstory being a foster child and such to explain how she got into this line of work, it never really matters to us. It’s almost a throwaway line and were never given a reason to care about any of this. Honestly, Nicky’s backstory doesn’t really matter either. His lines about his grandfather and father being into conning and teaming together seem pretty inconsequential and forgettable too, especially in a first-time viewing. Nicky’s background is tied into the plot eventually, but if you zone out during their lone conversation about their real lives, it’s not like you’ll be lost later in the movie. Though Robbie is a very good match for Smtih, they never go any deeper with Jess’s character development past what we already know. All we learn from her is in that conversation with her and Nicky early on. She gets by purely because she’s Margot Robbie. Her allure, or lack thereof because of her below-average flirting techniques that Nicky points out, is what draws us to her and because of the unceremonious break-up between the two to end the elongated first act, making her the innocent hottie we can’t wait to see reenter the picture. Other than that, we don’t know her true feelings until the climax of the movie. Unfortunately, we can’t go too deep anyway with her because you’re at risk of ruining the surprise, so it’s a bit of a give and take situation. Regardless of this, I can’t blame the writing too much. Sometimes, movie stars get by on being movie stars. It doesn’t always work, but when it does, a movie can still be entertaining. Such is the case with Margot Robbie in Focus.

Again, this should have been a much bigger hit. I’m not sure if the timing was just off on the release or whatever else, but it should have been much bigger at the box office even with the issues with the overall movie.

The random aside of the “White Bird” sequence where we’re not let in on what’s going on until the henchman crashes the car was my favorite scene in the film. The buildup to it was magnificent and wonderfully setup without a word being said. It’s the epitome of a scene not being necessary, but it made the movie all the more entertaining with its ingenuity.

Focus isn’t concentrated on making an in-depth narrative, complex characters, or a story that will win awards. What it does zero in on is making an extremely fun “date night” movie that’s amusing, cool, sexy, and unpredictable enough to keep your attention all the way to the very end. With the way it’s directed, the vibe of the movie is hypnotic at times too, adding to the overall appeal and colorful look of the product. Accompanied by a great soundtrack of catchy throwback tunes, and underrated chemistry between megastars Will Smith and Margot Robbie, Focus is a fun movie that does enough of what it’s good at to make it a very entertaining watch but not enough to make the movie a difference-maker.

Sometimes, that’s okay.