Review: FOCUS

FOCUS  (CRIME-DRAMA/ROMANTIC-COMEDY)
2 out of 4
Directed by Glenn Ficarra & John Requa
Starring: Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Rodrigo Santoro, Gerald McRaney, Adrian Martinez, BD Wong, Robert Taylor, Brennan Brown, Griff Furst, Stephanie Honore
Rated R for language, some sexual content and brief violence.
104 minutes
Verdict: With an unreasonably attractive, charismatic onscreen couple, glamorous international settings and style in spades, one has to wonder, FOCUS somehow manages to still leave you wondering, where's the rest?
YOU MAY ENJOY FOCUS IF YOU LIKED:
THE GRIFTERS  (1990)
HITCH  (2005)
CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE.  (2011)
OCEAN'S ELEVEN  (2001)
THE ITALIAN JOB  (2003)

Will Smith stars as Nicky Spurgeon, a legendary con-man who takes an attractive, fledgling con-woman, Jess Barrett (Margot Robbie), under his wing while overseeing a large pocket-picking operation in New Orleans, but when their partnership starts to turn to romance, the intimacy-averse Nicky cuts it off.  Three years later, while on the make in Buenos Aires, pulling off a con for a billionaire in the Formula 1 racing business, Nicky runs into Jess again, and in the midst of a very dangerous game, the flames of romance are rekindled.
Written and directed by the team of Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, the makers of CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE. and I LOVE YOU PHILLIP MORRIS, FOCUS bears some of the sharp humor of those films, and is as sleek and sexy as they come, but is lacking in substance.  It's a globe-spanning caper-comedy-drama-romance, but beneath all the flash, it's more than a little silly and leaves you without a sense of fulfillment, let alone interest.  It's as airy as they come, but it does have a pair of unrealistically attractive leads with onscreen charisma in spades.  Robbie, who first came to the attention of mainstream audiences with a dynamite performance as Jordan Belfort's wife in THE WOLF OF WALL STREET, has the chops to stick around, proving that she's more than a pretty face.  Smith has had a bad streak lately, but he's back doing what he does best in FOCUS, playing a charismatic smart-ass who's great at what he does.  The question is, why are these two talented actors, with all their options, in this?  There's nothing special about it, just a standard caper movie with lots of sex appeal and style.  It's a gorgeous Lamborghini with a maximum speed of 30 mph.  What's the point?