Focus is a Will Smith movie, I mean he is all OVER this film (quick note, if you don't like Will Smith then I suggest you skip this movie because I don't know if I said this already but he is all OVER this film). If he's not on camera he's about to me and when he is he's the best most charming thing the camera can focus on. It isn't however a Will Smith/Overbrook Entertainment film which means more than likely this role wasn't written with him in mind. After his last film, the debacle that was After Earth (which I wish I could have rewritten) Will needed something low key and something that was in his wheel house. Someone must have suggested he read the script for Focus and he came to the conclusion that this was a film he had to be in. I say that because the biggest flaw in this funny, beautiful looking film is the lack of fire/heat/chemistry between the two leads.
Focus stars of course Will Smith as Nicky, Margot Robbie as Jess, Gerald McRaney as Owens, the hilarious Adrian Martinez as Farhad, BD Wong as the fanatical Liyuan, and Rodrigo Santoro as Garriga. It is a very talented cast but as I said earlier, Focus' chief flaw is the lack of heat between Nicky and Jess. Jess and a partner of hers try to take Nicky down who just ends up embarrassing the duo. He then follows Jess, gives her some pointers and then leaves her in the cold NYC winter only to be tracked down by her in New Orleans at the Super Bowl. While there is a connection it feels like nothing more than a older brother/younger sister dynamic than anything else. That is made all the more apparent when he dumps her in New Orleans and moves on with his life only to run into her a few years later in South America. It made it seem that this role wasn't written with Will in mind but he felt like he needed to do it.
Focus is an absolutely beauty of a movie. The colors are vibrant, the costumes/wardrobe by Dayna Pink were perfect, and the cinematography by Xavier Grobet is gorgeous (though he was undoubtedly helped by beautiful locations). It's also a movie blessed with a pithy screenplay that's well written and executed even better. So much so that it has you thinking you know what the outcome is going to be only to be fooled at the very end. Glenn and John did their best to keep the Ocean 11 feel down to a minimum but these days any heist film is going to feel like an Ocean's movie. The charm of Focus though is that it chooses to focus on something other than the heist. My second beef with Focus was the lack of original score. Tasked with supplying music for the movie was Nick Urata and it seemed that the producers was so displeased with his offering that they littered the movie instead with great pop songs from the likes of Bruno Hovart, Stooges Brass Band, to Doris & Kelly's classic "You Don't Have to Worry". Thankfully Mark Graham and his musical team knew what they were doing and were able to give Focus a unique feel, something Nick failed to do. I would recommend Focus to any and everyone that isn't sick of Will Smith yet because I don't know if I said this yet but he is ALL over this movie. I'll see you at the theater.
I'm a Will fan, so I bought it pre-release on iTunes. Looking forward to it. Sad there's no heat. That seems like a pretty big flaw.
ReplyDeleteIt's a huge flaw but when you realize it was a role written for someone else then that lack of heat was bound to not show up on the screen.
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