Movie review: Focus Pocus

March 15, 2015 06:06 pm | Updated 06:06 pm IST

The American con-artist Apollo Robbins, who likes to describe himself as a ‘gentleman thief’, once ‘pick-pocketed’ a US Secret Service agent who was accompanying former President Jimmy Carter. The sleight-of-hand technique that subsequently won him much fame as a security consultant is premised on the art of ‘misdirection’. It revolves around distracting a potential victim and skillfully manipulating their awareness while dipping into their pockets — or otherwise scamming them blind.

In Focus, which credits Robbins as ‘Con Artist Adviser/Pickpocket Design’, Will Smith plays just such a con-man, Nicky Spurgeon, who will fake an identity even if it’s just to secure a hard-to-get reservation in an upscale restaurant. Nicky is a third-gen scammer with a troubled family history, but he leads his team of pilferers, pick-pockets and purloiners with almost corporate panache.

Genre: Comic thriller Director: Glenn Ficara, John Requa Cast: Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Adrian Martinez, Gerald McRaney, Rodrigo Santoro Storyline: A consummate con-artist takes a glamorous rookie under his wing, but she steals his heart. But perhaps love too is a con-game.

Into his crooked life enters glam-doll Jess Barrett (played by fresh-faced Margot Robbie), a wannabe con-girl whose laughably naïve methods initially earn Nicky’s unalloyed derision. But Nicky warms up to her — and who can blame him, seeing how she oozes oomph from every pore! — and grooms her and inducts her into his team of nimble-fingered racketeers. The scene in which he teaches her the tricks of the trade, including the core one of diverting the victim’s ‘focus’, is pure delight.

But Nicky also violates the one cardinal rule of the game, as imparted by his estranged ‘father’: love will slow you down — and eventually kill you. He flips for Jess, who evidently recriprocates his fond feelings, but after a particularly gripping (even if implausible) confidence trick sequence in New Orleans involving an inveterate Chinese gambler (a breezy portrayal by B.D. Wong) and over-the-top lunatic bets at a rugby game, he banishes her from his life.

But, of course, she has to re-enter his life again, in faraway Buenos Aires, where he’s plotting his next big con centred around a Formula 1 team software. The past — going back to Nicky’s estranged father —collides with the present in an endless whirl of double-crossing (and triple-crossing!). The on-screen chemistry between Nicky and Jess is electric, but given who they are, you’re forever left wondering if in their twisted world, even love is just another con-game.

For sure, the plotline stretches the limits of credulity, but like the best conjuring tricks, the whole thing is enormous fun. Like the gifted con-artists that they play, Will Smith and Margot Robbie pick the pocket of your life with consummate ease while keeping you sufficiently diverted for 100-plus minutes. And leave you chuckling at the end of it all.

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