Focus - For a film called ‘Focus’ it’s a little blurred

Okay, I’ll admit one of my main reasons for watching ‘Focus’ is because I saw Will Smith and Margot Robbie in ‘Suicide Squad’ and thought they were the best part about it.  It was only then that I found out they’d already starred together in a crime-caper and, based on their super-villain chemistry, thought it would probably be worth a watch.  And I was pleasantly surprised… to begin with.

Smith plays a suave conman who stumbles on a not-so-suave conwoman, played by Robbie.  However, she is endearing to him enough for him to feel like he needs to take her under his wing and teach her to refine her scamming ways in order to keep her out from the law’s reach just that little bit longer.  Luckily for him (and the speed of the narrative!) she takes to it pretty quickly and in a matter of seconds (well, ‘screen-time’ seconds anyway!) she’s as much of a pro as he is.  And so, he inducts her into his gang and off they go scamming people during a big festival-type event.

And I was quite enjoying this.  Yes, you do kind of have to leave the fact that, despite their charming exteriors and witty quips, these are criminals and although it’s quite fun and cool to watch them ‘work’ we’d most likely be a little less tolerant if one of them lifted our camera while they pretended to ask for directions in a crowded public place.  Anyway, it was fun seeing them scam – even if it does serve as a warning to watch out for these types of people and the tricks of their trade which allow them to operate.

However, about a third of the way through the film everything changes.  The group goes their separate ways after their major scam is complete.  After this, everything sort of slows down.  There’s only really one storyline going on which – obviously – centres on our two attractive leads and the single scam that’s now taking place.  It was about this time that I stopped watching intently and enjoying the light-hearted caper and had that burning desire to check my emails on my phone.  That’s what happens to the plot – it sort of drifts away from you and you stop really paying attention.  I think I may have checked Instagram once or twice during the second act and I’m pretty certain that I didn’t miss much.  It becomes the sort of film where you can quite easily nip out for a cup of tea and you won’t really have missed anything vital.

Overall, ‘Focus’ isn’t a bad film.  I really enjoyed the first half and the chemistry and coolness-factor of the two leads just about took me through the rest of it.  I’m not sure how often I’d bother watching it again.  I could probably go many years before really bothering to invest another couple of hours on this one.  Definitely one of those films where you’re better off watching it for free on one of the internet’s ‘streaming’ services rather than buying the Blu-ray at full price.

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that