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Friday, September 13, 2024
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HOLLYWOOD FOCUS
EDITOR'S PICK
'Focus'
- dreadful waste of time and talent (IANS Movie Review )
Rating:
*1/2
There is something inherently disagreeable about a film that extols the dubious
life of two con-persons as exemplary.
Will Smith and Margot Robbie are just two charlatans pretending that their
underhand antics make a difference to the way we perceive materialism and
covetousness in the present day context.
In Bollywood we are no strangers to cinema about con-girls and con-guys doing
their con thing in convivial conflict. Remember Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai
Bachchan in "Dhoom 2"?
"Focus" features the charismatic Smith swaggering down the crooked and
narrow path with Ms Robbie who true to her name, pilfers credit cards and
wallets with the celerity of a violin player negotiating those strings to
produce a sublime sound.
The music produced by the noisy turpitude of the chic twosome is a one-note
jingle hard selling potato wafers to a town of indolent slobs. The film assumes
a sense of intellectual superiority over the truly vapid actions of its two main
characters. It's like trying to play a soprano at a noisy club of revellers who
aren't really listening.
The drinks are on the house. But the food is heavily billed. The only reason
audiences would want to watch this film is to see the chemistry between the lead
pair.
Will Smith and his cute Australian co-star don't disappoint. Whenever they
converse, their sub-text suggests sex. Sadly there is very little of it on
screen. Sex, we mean. And don't blame our much vilified censor board. Whenever
the pair falls to the horizontal position the co-directors seem to be in a hurry
to push them on to the next elaborate con job.
One would have liked to see the warmth between the charismatic pair onscreen
rather than just hearing about it. Given the paucity of truly revealing moments
between Smith and Robbie their teary-eyed parting scene mid-way through the
brusque storytelling seems like a bit of con job as well.
But nothing to equal the scam pulled on the unsuspecting audience who are made
to sit through one picturesque location after another, looking for a tonal
compatibility between the characters and their behaviour. In excruciating detail
the script chronicles their exploits, none of them ingenious or even
interesting.
This is the kind of film that references its own cleverness to the point that
the audience is taken in as outsiders in an intricate game whose rules are known
only to the characters playing the game.
They can keep the con game to themselves, for all I care. "Focus" is a
dreadful waste of time and talent. Smith's charisma can only take the
proceedings this far and no further.
How far can you stretch a story of a teacher and his sexy pupil mastering the
art of hoodwinking people? After a point it just seems pointless.
