Focus

Focus has one great advantage: it is entertaining and unpredictable in its heist plot twists. And it’s also visually beautiful. The costumes, set designs and everything else are glamorously polished to the finest detail. Will Smith and Margot Robbie are cool, the point of the American football scene is top notch. Only the climax loses credibility in its effort to conjure up the biggest and most surprising twist yet. Less would have been more. Despite that, I’m giving this film four stars because it was a pleasant surprise, a rare sight among Hollywood mainstream flicks with lower ambitions. (17.03.2015)

Focus started, offered something, and then bewitched me with the scene where Will Smith tricked a greedy gambling Vietnamese guy. During the scene, I literally stopped breathing, but afterward, it all went too hell because the movie became incredibly boring. Towards the end of the movie, it again scored some points with a more interesting scene and after that, it was already the end. Focus is like that. Overall, it was shit, but here and there it offers a cinematographic delicacy. Well, and whether it is worth watching, you have to judge that for yourselves. If you ask me, were it not for Will and Margot Robbie I wouldn’t even remember it a day after watching it. (01.06.2016)

I put Focus on at a very emotional time in my life, when I was feeling everything much more intensely and perhaps quite uncritically. Anyway, it's a perfectly ordinary movie, of which hundreds have been made in America, but I still have my heart in my eyes and I'll argue that this one is much more powerful and profound. In fact, things spark like thunder between the truly divinely beautiful Margot and Will, and I felt that even Romeo and Juliet's love couldn't match theirs. (02.11.2015)

A pleasant, genre hybrid with interesting twists and great actors. Smith was in desperate need for a come-back, and if it wasn’t for that (over the top) final twist, it would have worked. However, Margot Robbie confirms her abilities and comes across as a talented actress who has more to her than “just" the luck of catching Scorsese’s eye. A visual feast for the eyes. (21.06.2015)

Focus is unpredictable in key twists, so different from most heist films, which often rely on meticulous visuals and period hits, but go forward with a smile and in clearly laid tracks. There is plenty of gloss here too, but you never know what card the main characters will turn over. It's a shame about the ending, which very far from believable. Because as long as stayed within the acceptable, it was a great thing with a contemporary atmosphere and downtempo music that looks and sounds fantastic on the big screen. (02.06.2015)

If that clever cheat happened at the end rather than at the opening of the film, it would be a win. Instead, the screenwriters laid their cards too soon, and Focus then slowly dies out as the creators drown in a vain quest to surpass the beginning. (25.04.2018)

The first half of the movie, before the whole plot moves three years forward, I quite enjoyed. But then it started to become unbelievably predictable, mainly due to the fact that Will Smith is in it and that it simply cannot experiment with the plot a little. Yes, it's not a typical feel-good movie, but still, his character is cliché, and with it the whole story, which is occasionally enticing, but other times it was painful for me, especially from a screenwriting perspective. (26.06.2015)

A decent cast and an interesting topic, however, the whole thing kind of falls flat. Plus, I don’t know why but I had a feeling that Smith was incredibly annoyed by his comeback and found it irritating just to be on set. Let’s say it’s the fault of completely uninteresting dialogues or an overall bland story, and Smith will hopefully pull himself together before Suicide Squad. (03.07.2015)