Feb. 26--In August 2016, Will Smith and Margot Robbie will lead the ensemble of the DC Comics adaptation "Suicide Squad," a presumptive superantihero franchise in the making. Meantime, consider the new film "Focus" as a sort of Intro-to-Chemistry test for the same actors. Do they pass?
Screen chemistry between two individuals isn't really a pass/fail proposition. There are degrees involved. But let's pretend otherwise and say yes, Smith and Robbie pass, barely, with less than flying colors and in a pretty dull movie. Modeling sunglasses in close-up or murmuring double-entendres in low light, usually in single shots that prevent any real sense of interplay, Smith and Robbie are skillful enough on their own to lift a laborious con artist story to a simpler plateau, where we can focus on the unimportant stuff (eyewear, attractive extras floating by) and pretend to be fully invested in the outcome.
Without divulging the twists: "Focus" concludes with a shot of two characters limping into a hospital, and unfortunately that's a metaphor for the movie itself, written and directed by the "Crazy, Stupid, Love." team of Glenn Ficarra and John Requa. They're going for the retro cool of "The Thomas Crown Affair," so much so that the end credits of "Focus" feature a new version of "The Windmills of Your Mind," the song that won the Oscar for highest volume of slightly perplexing similes in one lyric.
In "Focus," Smith plays gentleman thief Nicky Spurgeon, who runs a 30-person team of pickpockets and scam artists. Robbie is the fatale-in-training Jess Barrett, looking for a mentor and a leg up in the con game. The fine line between "blase but charming" and "lazy" is seriously blurred in the introductory scenes, which push these two together without finding the crucial wit to bind them. After an impromptu dinner and a fumbled scam, Nicky imparts a few tricks to Jess about sleight-of-hand and the code of the profession. "Die with the lie," he instructs. Eventually "Focus" tests Nicky's belief in that axiom, in an ugly scene in which their big mark, an Argentine sleazeball (Rodrigo Santoro), tortures Jess and messes with the film's overall vibe.
Con artist films are tricky by definition. For every "Ocean's 11," there's an audience flop, such as "Duplicity" with Julia Roberts and Clive Owen, that gets one too many steps ahead of the audience, while relying on the stars. The best scene in "Focus," in which Smith engages in an escalating series of risky wagers with a Chinese high roller (BD Wong) at a championship football game, allows Smith to play something other than Joe Cool for a few minutes. Robbie, an Australian native, isn't bad, but her energy and focus appear to be centered on finding the right, neutral American dialect.
When I was a kid, I couldn't get enough of this sort of picture. The amorality seduced me, so much so that I can remember whole scenes from the 1973 time-waster "Harry in Your Pocket" half a lifetime later. Nowadays I have a harder time getting my mind off the off-screen suckers whose credit cards are being stolen. In its New Orleans scenes, before the story moves to Buenos Aires, "Focus" presents a couple of absurdly complicated pickpocket routines designed to dazzle. But the action is barely trackable, and the editing, while functionally flashy, is no help.
Also: Why do the demure love scenes between Smith and Robbie appear to have been choreographed by seething, distrustful spouses lurking just off-camera? A movie such as "Focus" has to get something going in that department, whatever its explicitness. Some will take "Focus" in the intended spirit, that of a casual, eye-candy throwback to older Hollywood. Many found the same creative team's "Crazy, Stupid, Love." a disarming romantic comedy (me, less so), and clearly the team has a gift for zigzag plotting. But the setup of "Focus" feels hasty and insufficient, and quite apart from their respective levels of talent, Smith and Robbie are required mainly to swan around in what the child-development experts call "parallel play." Even in a lark about con artists working through their trust issues, we need more.
"Focus" -- 2 stars
MPAA rating: R (for language, some sexual content and brief violence)
Running time: 1:45
Opens: Friday
mjphillips@tribune.com
