Focus, Review: Romcom.Concon

Romantic comedy masquerading as sublime love tale pretending to be a confidence trickster story... is about as deFocused as it could get. The title is relevant after you have seen the film, but adds to the complexity of the film’s profile before you decide to watch it. Indeed, it is a highly unlikely romcom involving a pair of con persons (one is a woman). Will Smith is a seasoned pro, while Margot Robbie is a bumbling amateur, whom he takes under his tutelage and mentors to perfection. She is a prodigious learner, and after a suspenseful con job, which helps rake in over $1 mn, he packs her off. She is heart-broken, having fallen in love with him along the way, while he is worried that in his profession, where light fingers grope back-pockets, there is no place for affairs of the heart. Perfect half-way point, or, as the Indian theatrical system runs, just the spot to give an intermission! Part II picks up three years later, and is largely centred on one job, which was the case in Part I, just preceding the interval.  Any more, and the cons will become gones, so my slips are ealed!

Focus is jointly written and directed by John Requa and Glenn Ficarra, who made their directing debut on the Jim Carrey-starrer I Love You Philip Morris and went on to work on Crazy, Stupid, Love and Bad Santa. Ficarra, now 46, met John Requa at Pratt Institute, where both were studying film. After college they went to work in animation for the TV channel Nickelodeon. As writers they wrote the comedy films Cats & Dogs, Bad Santa, and Bad News Bears. In 2009 they made their directorial debut with their self-penned I Love You Phillip Morris, based on the life of con man Steven Russell. Con seems to be worth a revisit, so here they are. Having missed Philip Morris (and not being a smoker), I cannot compare the two films.

Focus is sexy (Margot’s surely got it), stylish (direction, cinematography and music), smooth (editing) and stuttering (writing). The two main con jobs are well-executed but two long for their own good. The first one, involving Chinese actor B.D. Wong as Li Yuan, is played out like the Casino Royale card game (in Ian Fleming’s novel, not in the film versions), and that was tedious for the uninitiated. And, ahem, there are loopholes in the plot the size of an American football field. It is impossible to suspend logic and disbelief on the scale at which Ficarra and Requa expect the audience to.

Three fellow critics opined at the preview that Will Smith has begun to look old. Old? He looks not a day over 45, and that is great for somebody who has crossed 56. In The Wolf of Wall Street, Robbie (now just 25, and maybe a little too young for the role opposite a man who is more than twice her age, some might feel)) held her own against Leonardo DiCaprio's manic playboy as his gorgeous, wife, doing HOT scenes with aplomb. She has already been cast as Jane opposite Alexander Skarsgard in Tarzan, which might be a good piece of casting. A: She is not shy of exposing her assets B. She has face and features and that combine the statuesque with the ‘feminesque’.

Talking about how she bagged her two big roles, she revealed to an American magazine, “Bad auditions lead to really good work. I hit Leo in the face in my audition for Wolf, like slapped him in the face — and I wasn't meant to, obviously. In the audition for Focus, I called Will a jerk.” That wasn't in the script. That's what got her the role! She is curvy and feisty here, making good use of a role that offers a wide range of emotions and situations.

Adrian Martinez has a (foot)ball as Farhad, though why a Mexican looking man is named Farhad beats me. Owens McRaney is a discovery at 66, coming across as a cross between Sean Connery and J.K. Simmons (Whiplash). McRaney is wealthy, conniving businessman Raymond Tusk on the Netflix political drama House of Cards, starring Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright. He made his Broadway debut in the 2008 play Dividing the Estate, which was nominated for a Tony Award. He was also in the 2010 film The A-Team. Rodrigo Santorro and Robert Taylor also have good roles. Taylor plays an Australian, a racing team owner, with an Aussie twang (he is Australian, as is Robbie, who comes from the Gold Coast, the nearest point from Singapore). There is a good double joke, one insider and one racist, which you might want to enjoy. (Note how Robbie does not say “past” as the Americans would, her accent being British/Australian here, not American). Robert Taylor was 6 years old when his namesake, the legendary American actor, died, in 1969.

Good to pass the time. But take care of your belongings, your pockets, and watc- out for the person sitting next to you, and ….

Glenn Ficarra and John Requa are working on a film based on the rise and fall of eccentric anti-virus software magnate John McAfee, who led an extreme life-style and had a property in Belize. After being implicated in the death of a neighbour, McAfee fled the scene.