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| Directed and Written by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa |
For whatever reason, the first big market trend of 2015 seems to be high profile hard-R releases going big at the box office. Nobody expected American Sniper to be the juggernaut it's become, Fifty Shades of Grey, essentially soft core porn, made over 80 million opening weekend and is still number one at the box office, Kingsman may be struggling but it's become a close second and it's probably destined to become a cult classic. In short, movies specifically for adults are on top of the world, though that may change once blockbuster season rolls around, but for now we have Focus, a Will Smith vehicle built mostly around dialogue that is being marketed as an IMAX movie.
Will Smith plays veteran con man Nicky 'Mellow', a man at the top of his game as he takes on Margot Robbie's Jess as his apprentice. As they work together on bigger and bigger heists, they start to fall in love, only for him to ditch her out of the blue. Three years later they run into each other again in the middle of an even bigger job, and their relationship picks up again at the worst possible time.
Alright, so it's a talk-y dark-comedy romance, why on Earth is it playing in IMAX? I thought that too, but then I actually saw it and found that Focus has some gorgeous cinematography. The camera slowly glides in, through, and around urban landscapes with such finesse that it's almost worth the price of an IMAX ticket. In fact, maybe the camerawork is too good, the audience gets so sucked in by all the eye candy that they forget to pay attention to the story, but the plot isn't that important, because Focus is not a very story driven film, instead the star is the dialogue, delivered by the two leads. Smith delivers an appropriately downplayed dose of his legendary charisma, Margot Robbie consistently matches him, and the two have fantastic chemistry as they trade one pair of dry one-liners after another.
The annual post-Oscars dry spell has been surprisingly good this year, and Focus is no exception. This one is really good, it's the best Will Smith has been in years, more than worth checking out in one way or another.
Have a nice day.
Greg.B
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