Review of Focus (2015) by Liam C — 16 Apr 2015

Focus is a well executed, tight and neatly packed little thriller and I enjoyed it quite a bit. Every movie wishes it could open as good as this one did, right from the first second a cool soundtrack is being played whilst showcasing the movie's excellent visuals, it's cool and very slick, just like the movie itself and it really draws you in. Even the font for this movie is nice and when it is shown over a car that goes over a bump, it changes, and that just shows how much detail was put into the look of this movie. I liked how our main characters met and it felt natural enough, just like the lead's chemistry. Will Smith gave a very different kind of performance and he felt really natural in the part and Margot Robbie does excellently next to him and the two carry things very well. Seeing the early pickpocket scenes play out was just visually interesting to see play out, even though a lot of things had to go perfectly for them to even happen, but they are professionals, so I guess it makes sense. The script was really good and I really enjoyed the dialogue between characters and it had a nice amount of humor in there as well, it would have been something to see if she hadn't have picked 55. Because it's a con film, you try to work out yourself what the twist ending might be but I was happy with the fact the ending felt like something quite different. There were a few twists throughout the film but there are quite a lot in the last 10 minutes, which I think is what critics seemed to have not liked, which I do think is unfair; it all makes sense for what it is trying to do and if you really wanted to think about it, I guess you could find problems with it but it's easier to just let it wash over you, it was fun. Some could also say it feels like the movie is just trying to cover itself at the end when it's all revealed as it feels we are being told instead of the characters but it made sense because we didn't know everything that was going on, which is how it should be. There was also something very sudden that happened to Smith's character in that scene that made me jump.

I felt like it was a tad coincidental when they met up years later but it didn't bother me too much. I also felt like around the hour mark of the movie it started to slow down a bit but it soon picked up and moved onto something else. I also thought it was a bit odd how Nicky said he had changed because it really didn't feel like it but they even manage to make that work as well but I did find it odd how Jess didn't talk to Nicky but didn't suspect that when she very easily spoke to his friend that he could have been up to something. There was also a pretty great rant about technology in there even if that scene should have ended with Nicky saying what the other person said he should say instead of just being sarcastic, that would have been funny. The only thing in terms of filmmaking that I didn't like is that it felt like there was one too many bedroom scenes but for some of them it made sense for the plot and the others didn't really go on that long, so that's something. I thought the end credits were pretty interesting and probably could have gone on a little longer as well.

I don't really understand why this movie took so long to come out but 'Focus' is a very enjoyable and watchable movie with actors that know what they are doing and make everything very fun to watch.