Movie Review: Focus

Will Smith strives for sultry but settles on sulky in Focus, a downbeat con-man drama that benefits mostly from not being After Earth.

Let Lowry be Lowry.

It's probably Will Smith's character from Bad Boys people think of most when they see the unnervingly boyish 46-year-old actor. Back in 1995, Mike Lowry - wisecracking lothario and uber-confident action hero - was proof that the Fresh Prince, despite his goofy rap origins, would feel right at home on the big screen.

His premiership run lasted nearly two decades. Smith became the only actor to have eight consecutive movies open in first place at the American box office. He then spent the second decade of this century ushering children Willow and Jaden into stardom themselves, against the will of the public. He godfathered an Annie remake for Willow (which she eventually balked on) and co-starred in the grim, Scientology-riffing M. Night Shyamalan flop After Earth with Jaden.

This is how the fallen megastar ended up in Focus, a project that former pariah Ben Affleck passed on. It was as if they accidentally traded fates after shaking hands on the set of Jersey Girl, a bomb in 2004 that is now apparently acting as a time bomb for Big Willie nearly a decade later. Will no one be spared?

Focus feels like Smith testing his Q Score; seeing if audiences will still pay to watch him just be Will Smith on a big screen (even if it is a watered down version of his old, boisterous self). His scene partner, Margot Robbie, takes second billing; a promotion earned off her endearingly brassy turn in The Wolf of Wall Street. Used to be Smith was too incandescent to be paired with mere ingénues.

The plot is as you would expect for this genre. (The script comes from writer-director team Glenn Ficarra and John Requa.) Smith plays Nicky Spurgeon, the cool-as-a-cucumber con artist who inevitably gets flustered over a girl; in this, it’s Robbie's doe-eyed newbie Jess Barrett. They embark on a ribald series of grifts in New Orleans, culminating with the feature’s only great sequence, in which they keep upping the stakes with anything-goes gambler Liyuan Tse (an electric B.D. Wong) at the Super Bowl. You’ll finish the film thinking only of this swiftly edited sequence, and especially Wong.

Nicky and Jess eventually go to bed with one another, become too close and then go their separate ways. Three years later, Spurgeon finds an opportunity for his biggest score yet in Buenos Aires, though the surprise appearance of Jess as his client’s squeeze muddies the waters. Is she too on the take? At least the filmmakers know you’re smart enough to assume something's up, even if their script is not ingenious enough to actually subvert those expectations.

Ficarra and Requa made the kinetic love story I Love You Philip Morris and then followed it with the passable, mildly-creepy Crazy, Stupid, Love. Focus, their first effort not centered on lifetime imprisonment or divorce, is somehow also their glummest. More concerned with appearing cool than actually fun, Focus drags on, trying to convince us of Nicky and Jess’ timeless, star-crossed love, when really you’d rather watch spunky actors scheme and manipulate each other. Robbie has a megawatt smile, but not yet the kind of star charisma that this kind of picture relies almost entirely on.

And Smith, who was supposed to be turning it on again after morbid exercises in self-immolation After Earth, Seven Pounds and I Am Legend, barely cracks a smile here. It's a step in the right direction for him, should he want to reclaim his box office crown. However, Focus could have used some real Mike Lowry swagger, rather than Lowry-light. If I wanted to see a thief not have a good time, I'd just find footage of Robin Thicke hearing the “Blurred Lines” plagiarism verdict.

2.5/5

In cinemas. Rated MA15+ for strong violence, sex scenes and coarse language.