The Will Smith and Margot Robbie Vehicle Focus Is No Way to Get Back on the Cinema-Going Horse3/9/2015 I have recently put a serious dent in the business of my local art-house theater. Instead of rushing to make up for it as soon as I could, I let a couple of friends drag me to the multiplex instead and all the way to Will Smith’s newest attempt to restore his reputation after After Earth showed him the life after one’s no longer a big box-office draw. The experience wasn’t a horrible one, much like Focus itself isn’t horrible, merely boring and lackluster.
If you’ve seen a picture of Robbie and Smith and concluded that these are two very attractive people, congratulations, you have no need to see Focus, as that’s the only thing this sterile exercise in fruition manages to convey. It’s shiny and glossy but then so it’s the latest Channel advert, only that Focus is directed and shot with less skill and artistry. The plot is that of two bad episodes of White Collar (and I personally think White Collar is a trite procedural fluff piece). Focus does have this air of two TV eps stuck together, as the first part has a clear, finished story and then the film hits the replay button on itself and comes around for another round of well-polished boredom. I am certain every critic and their mother already made 10,000 jokes about how a movie called Focus could be so lacking in just that so I’ll spare you. Truth of the matter is that there isn’t much to say about Focus: it exists, it has two charismatic leads that do nothing, but other than that, it’s harmless. Compared to the poor souls dragged to the crime against cinema released on this year’s Valentine’s Day, I didn’t have such a bad time. Since I’m too bored by the thought of this film to bother coming up with a more elaborate assessment, I’ll do what the real film critics of Rotten Tomatoes do: copy-paste a synopsis. Focus is an unfunny dark yet uncannily well-lit not at all romantic comedy about a veteran conman, who meets a newbie he takes under his wing and falls in love with her or maybe doesn’t, while they both attempt to pull off some sort of a scheme… twice in one movie. My assessment: bad, uninterestingly so. P.S. I was gifted a Boyhood poster on my way in the theater so not a total waste of my time, after all! |
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March 2015
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