‘Focus’ loses momentum in second half

“Focus” starring Will Smith and Margot Robbie may have taken their love story a bit too far.

This tale starts with Nicky (Will Smith), a con-man who recruits Jess (Margot Robbie) in an effort to get yet another follower on his team. The tandem travel to New Orleans, where Nicky teaches Jess the ropes of how to con in a major way. Unfortunately, Jess begins to fall for Nicky only to have him drop her after their time together in The Big Easy. The story picks up three years later in Buenos Aires where we find that Nicky is broke and has found work assisting Garriga (Rodrigo Santoro), a race car team owner, in selling off a fake version of his new high-performance gasoline formula.

The first act of the film is fantastic. There’s high-paced action and emotion from Will Smith, and Margot Robbie is thrilling.Their on-screen chemistry is brilliant and had me, at some points, holding my breath wondering if they would get out of a particular situation alive. There are also a few scenes in the beginning that had me laughing out loud.

Regrettably, any type of witty banter is lost in the second half of the film.

While watching, I was thinking to myself that there was going to be an incredible second half to this film, filled with gritty love interests and hostage situations because Nicky could not pay for something he did. Sadly, that’s not what happened.

The rest of the movie has too many plot twists that continued to stretch the story even further from its core. It moved away from the interesting cons that Nicky can do and put way too much focus on the love story with Jess. While admittedly at times I was drawn in and invested in the story, I found myself wondering how and if this film was ever going to end. It is almost as if Ficarra and Requa had to write an improbable ending to round everything together in a way that made some sense. I don’t think they realized just how far away they shifted the focus of the film in a direction that may have seemed interesting but in the end only left me wondering why.

Smith did a wonderful job at not trying to be super creative and taking too long to develop a character. Instead his lighthearted appeal and easygoingness allows for a character that you simply can’t help but fall in love with. Robbie does her part as well, playing the new girl on the corner looking to make her mark in the con world — nothing flashy or as impressive as her work on “Wolf of Wall Street” but nonetheless a good primer between that and her next major role as Harley Quinn in the Suicide Squad.

Regrettably, I think that this film missed in a big way, and overall I’d have to give it a C+.

— Jay Wolin started writing film reviews for Utah Statesman in the fall. He loves football, movies and comic. He will major in communications this spring. Send questions or comments to jacob_wolin@yahoo.com.