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Focus

year 2015decade 10sdirector Glenn Ficarra and John Requagenre Romancegenre Comedygenre Crime

105 minutes

Cast

Selected cast credits · Film reference

Will Smith Nicky Spurgeon
Margot Robbie Jess Barrett
Rodrigo Santoro Garriga
BD Wong Liyuan
Robert Taylor McEwen
Dotan Bonen Gordon

Focus | The Rewatchables

host Bill Simmonsguest Wesley Morrisproducer Craig Horlbeck
Explore episodeClose episode

Most Rewatchable Scene

Super Bowl scene; explanation of the con

In the discussion (23)
Approx. transcript time · 00:38:18Read transcript
  • The segment opens by saying there is an obvious winner but the candidates will be walked through.
  • The opening hotel-bar scene recalls Out of Sight; the whole movie has an Out of Sight vibe with Soderbergh color schemes and a retro jazz-ish soundtrack.
  • The hotel-room shakedown where Will Smith isn't buying it is liked, quoted through the Saudi bachelor party and cancer lines.
  • Her thief audition on Bourbon Street is short but good; she carries it, and the sequence won one participant over on her, with a Pretty Woman-like sense of an actress blossoming in the part.
  • The pre-Super Bowl bedroom scene, where he explains the Mello nickname and his dad's hammers-and-nails advice, is the needed quiet scene showing why to care about the couple.
  • The Super Bowl scene is called one of the most rewatchable scenes of the last 10 years.
  • The fake teams and uniforms, resembling Seahawks or XFL gear, are indefensible because the Super Bowl rights were not obtained; the sequence runs over 10 minutes.
  • On rewatch you see Smith setting up B.D. Wong's gambler Lee Wan, and Sympathy for the Devil, often misused, works well.
  • First time through it looks like he will blow the money; Jess spots Farhad through binoculars and gets it; B.D. Wong is great and it is a good 10-minute scene despite fake teams.
  • B.D. Wong is having the time of his life off a Law & Order set and is probably overdoing it, flagged for the later overacting award.
  • For a non-gambler the scene seems to head into a dark Leaving Las Vegas turn and reveals you can bet on anything.
  • As a gambling scene it works, like a home-run hat pool at a ballgame; the one flaw, saved for nitpicks, is the terrible odds of the final double-or-nothing bet.
  • Bored rich men betting in a suite is realistic, the reveal of the planted fives is cool, and the clever switch is worrying about Smith instead of the actual gambling addict.
  • Liyuan just loves the action and the story, so losing does not bother him; the high matters more than the stakes.
  • The limo dump with the $80K payoff, held as one shot while she breaks down, is very Soderbergh; why he does it is deferred.
  • In Buenos Aires three years later she flips the con on him over drinks; the music is unnecessary goosing.
  • On rewatch Smith visibly seems turned on in the drinks scene, rated a seven on a scale topped by William Hurt in Body Heat, with The Big Easy also cited.
  • Owens (Gerald McRaney) sniffs around the hotel room while Robbie escapes by the balcony; balcony escapes are always welcome.
  • The Owens rant is called overwritten screenwriting leaning on McRaney's southern military masculinity.
  • The final candidate is Nikki explaining the con to the bad guys, the shooting and the whole ending.
  • The Super Bowl scene is named most rewatchable 'for me'.
  • Asked 'What do you have?', the reply picks the explanation of the con: the keylogger necklace and two montages letting Robbie then Smith tell their sides.
  • The ending also features Rodrigo Santoro and the beefy security guy; the guy's roughly 90-second pharmacy sequence is praised as a Soderbergh- or Michael Mann-style bit and deferred to aged-best.

What’s Aged the Best?

Smith-Robbie chemistry; music choices; title said in the movie; Will Smith's collared shirts; pharmacy car-crash sequence; non-lethal staged shooting; thief lessons

In the discussion (11)
Approx. transcript time · 00:57:37Read transcript
  • The Will Smith and Margot Robbie chemistry is listed first.
  • Most of the music choices are liked, including the opening song, Iggy Pop's Gimme Danger and a White Bird song.
  • The title is said in the movie ('this is a game ... of focus'), which always wins a heart.
  • Will Smith's clothes, especially checkered collared shirts, are elite, though the decade they aim for is hard to place.
  • Smith's S curl hair is a sticking point: sometimes it looks fantastic, sometimes terrible.
  • The hair may be meant to make McRaney plausibly his biological father; the film says he is 'basically my father' and leaves the biology ambiguous.
  • A three-years-later dateline graphic is welcomed by one side, while the other asks why a caper needs a dateline, unlike Siriana or a Bourne movie; the location is corrected from Buenos Aires to New Orleans.
  • The bad guy buying products at the pharmacy for the car accident is a really good sequence.
  • The deliberate non-lethal shooting, aimed between ribs, is hard to pull off but works here, called the best one ever seen.
  • Thief lessons are liked: give stolen cards back within an hour, married guys make the best marks, sell everything, take no chances.
  • A never-pickpocketed participant doubts anyone could take his watch and calls her stealing the Piage watch at the end impossible; the cuts on every move and one visible wrist-wiggle suggest liberties.

What’s Aged the Worst?

McEwen, the Australian race-car guy; unexplained breakup after the Super Bowl con

In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 01:05:26Read transcript
  • The Australian race-car guy is just a bad, uninteresting character, as if the actor were hired two minutes before filming.
  • Why Smith's character broke up with Robbie's after the Super Bowl heist is never understood; the theory is the movie needed it and it could not be a transgression.
  • After selling the chemistry the film never explains the walkaway; it would have been better if he were married.

Casting What-Ifs

In the discussion (6)
Approx. transcript time · 01:06:32Read transcript
  • The film was originally to star Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, two people mentioned earlier in the episode whom the filmmakers would want to reunite; they dropped out, possibly toward La La Land.
  • Doing this and La La Land back to back would have made them a Tracy-Hepburn pairing, prompting a tangent on audiences recognizing pre-1970 references.
  • Ben Affleck and Kristen Stewart then became the leads; it would have been a good Affleck movie, though one participant does not like the combination.
  • Stewart is praised as a subtle sexual actor, citing an extremely erotic film with Julieta Benoche, versus Robbie's externalized style; Smith and Stewart are predicted best actor and actress winners this year.
  • An Affleck-Robbie pairing is joked to have continued off set; Affleck instead made Runner Runner with Justin Timberlake, called poorly directed.
  • Per the internet research, Affleck dropped out over scheduling, Will Smith signed, then Stewart dropped out; whether she left over scheduling is unknown, assumed busy.

Recasting Couch

Russell Crowe as McEwen; Ving Rhames as Owens

In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 01:12:20Read transcript
  • Pay Russell Crowe a million to play the crazy Australia car guy McEwen for two scenes, heavier and bearded, around his Noah period.
  • The confusing dad part might be less confusing with Ving Rames, another Soderbergh connection; one participant expected the dad to turn out to be Rames, though it would make even less sense.
  • Ving Rames's six-year 90s run is on the short list of forgotten iconic runs.

Half-Assed Internet Research

Apollo Robbins as sleight-of-hand consultant; first major movie cut on Final Cut Pro; the Toledo Twist

In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 01:13:32Read transcript
  • Little could be found beyond the film using Apollo Robbins as consultant for the sleight of hand.
  • It was the first major movie edited on Apple's Final Cut Pro on Mac Pro, explained as editing software.
  • The staged shooting of a teammate to prove it isn't a scam is called the Toledo Twist in the movie; the line 'Was that a Toledo twist?' is a favorite.
  • The trick was reportedly once used by the Nazis, appears in North by Northwest when Eve Kendall shoots Roger Thornhill, and in a 1986 McGiver episode.

Apex Mountain

No affirmative selection

In the discussion (6)
Approx. transcript time · 01:15:21Read transcript
  • Will Smith: no. Margot Robbie: no, her Apex is felt to be still coming, with "nothing yet".
  • An aside objects that great acting now means playing real people, as with I, Tonya, the Roger Ailes film and Richard Williams, suggesting a best adapted performance Oscar; Meryl Streep as Thatcher and Saturday Live celebrity impressions are cited.
  • Brad Pitt's original character in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is more interesting; Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is floated as Robbie's Apex 'right now', immediately qualified that it doesn't feel like it has happened yet.
  • New Orleans movies: no. B.D. Wong: no, despite Law & Order and And the Band Played On.
  • Super Bowl movie scenes: definitely not. Gambling scenes: up there, in the conversation, alongside The Sting and Maverick.
  • Maverick is called a caper movie; a Maverick anniversary piece was written as a special request, and it tapped a rarely seen Jody Foster.

Picking Nits

Margot Robbie too memorable for an under-the-radar thief; 30-person New Orleans crew; incomprehensible race-car con

In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 01:20:02Read transcript
  • Margot Robbie may be too attractive and memorable to be an under-the-radar thief.
  • The counterpoint is that she's a petty con artist and her beauty creates the distraction for taking the watch; Miami Vice's recognizable undercover cops are compared.
  • The New Orleans crew is about 30 people at a party with no undercover agent among them, splitting $1.2 million.
  • The auto-racing con Smith pulls remains confusing even after multiple viewings; an attempted explanation trails off into 'I don't get it'.

Sequel, Prequel, Limited Series, or All-Black Remake

Yes, with a different caper each episode or season

In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 01:22:23Read transcript
  • A different caper every episode or season could work: New Orleans as a 50-minute episode one, Buenos Aires episode two, a splashy location each time.
  • Both are in: 'I'm not against it... I think I'm in' and 'I'm down'.
  • A tangent recalls Hart to Hart, whose rich couple helped solve crimes rather than pull jobs.

Probably Unanswerable Questions

Focus 2

In the discussion (2)
Approx. transcript time · 01:23:59Read transcript
  • The only question offered is Focus 2, a sequel: Robbie bigger, Smith older and trying to get out of the game for one last job.
  • The leads would be divorced with a kid who is in on the heist, a preschool heist.

Who Won the Movie?

Car-crash henchman; Margot Robbie

In the discussion (5)
Approx. transcript time · 01:24:39Read transcript
  • A 'crazy choice' is announced and described as not an obvious answer; 'Farhad' is interjected.
  • The pick is the henchman who performs the car-crash stunt in essentially a single take, shot from both sides so blood appears after impact, driving into Smith and Robbie.
  • The character is looked up on air as Brennan Brown as Horst, with doubt whether that was his name; 'That guy wins the movie for me.'
  • The other pick is Margot Robbie, who goes toe to toe with a huge star and pulls him out of a five-year movie coma; Smith could win, but she is in a better place afterward.
  • She could have a Charlize-type career, though she is not yet as good an actress.
Podcast choices
Speaker not identified
Car-crash henchman
Speaker not identified
Margot Robbie

More from the conversation

It is Will Smith week with King Richard arriving Friday on HBO Max, described as his best Oscar chance; the episode frames a career that keeps drifting to blockbusters instead of where fans want him.
Approx. transcript time · 00:03:55Read transcript
Focus (2015) came after a dreary stretch; a 2015 Grantland piece called it proof of life for Will Smith.
Approx. transcript time · 00:05:04Read transcript
The 2006-2014 stretch is walked through: Pursuit of Happyness, I Am Legend, Hancock making money without working, and Seven Pounds.
Approx. transcript time · 00:05:30Read transcript
Seven Pounds is called one of the single worst movies ever made and the worst thing he did, a star-as-martyr vehicle with new-age content that is offensively bad.
Approx. transcript time · 00:05:45Read transcript
Similar star-martyr or message movies are listed: Pay It Forward, The Legend of Bagger Vance, What Dreams May Come; Ghost is the one that worked, and My Life with Michael Keaton does not.
Approx. transcript time · 00:06:38Read transcript
Men in Black 3 is read as a bid for relevance, likened to Tom Cruise accepting he is Ethan Hunt; he then turned down Django and made After Earth.
Approx. transcript time · 00:08:41Read transcript
A-plus movie stars usually get 10-15 year runs (Russell Crowe as example), which makes Denzel's and Cruise's resilience notable; by 2014 Smith had not been good in a movie since Pursuit of Happyness and I Am Legend.
Approx. transcript time · 00:08:57Read transcript
Focus is an unusual caper and romantic Will Smith turn; a producer comparison calls it Hitch as a caper movie.
Approx. transcript time · 00:10:01Read transcript
Will Smith's memoir Will was read in a day and a half for the co-host's book in progress; it describes his life rather than his work.
Approx. transcript time · 00:10:17Read transcript
Smith's movies keep his sexuality out of the work, partly racial and Hollywood history; he is called the most direct descendant of Sidney Poitier, whose screen asexuality frustrated audiences, as did Eddie Murphy's in the 80s.
Approx. transcript time · 00:11:11Read transcript
Poitier's 1967 peak (Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, To Sir with Love, In the Heat of the Night) is called his Apex Mountain; he followed it by producing a film where he makes love to Abbey Lincoln.
Approx. transcript time · 00:13:06Read transcript
Smith's Muhammad Ali is romantic rather than sexual, whereas Ali was the most sexually charismatic man of the 70s; Smith's star charisma is not sexual, which makes Focus interesting.
Approx. transcript time · 00:14:08Read transcript
Margot Robbie pulls something out of him; the hosts slightly disagree on the chemistry, with one side believing they have real chemistry and a second viewing moving the other closer.
Approx. transcript time · 00:14:46Read transcript
A caper movie must work on two levels: the first viewing for what happens, the second for the tells and the manipulation; on rewatch the last 20-30 minutes in Buenos Aires deepen and the relationship is more persuasive than in 2015.
Approx. transcript time · 00:15:21Read transcript
Focus was his first R-rated movie since Bad Boys 2 in 2003, a 12-year gap, called an important point about how he sees himself.
Approx. transcript time · 00:16:50Read transcript
A Time magazine article described Smith and his manager studying the biggest movies ever and settling on blockbusters and aliens, leading to Men in Black and Independence Day.
Approx. transcript time · 00:17:06Read transcript
Six Degrees of Separation, Focus, Pursuit of Happyness and moments in Bad Boys suggest he could have had a Denzel-like one-for-us, one-for-him career, which is why King Richard is interesting.
Approx. transcript time · 00:17:33Read transcript
I Am Legend lets him do both genre and solo work; it is called a Hero Ball movie like The Martian and Cast Away, which A-plus stars love and audiences reward.
Approx. transcript time · 00:18:15Read transcript
Denzel's versions are The Hurricane and, partly, Man on Fire.
Approx. transcript time · 00:19:43Read transcript
One participant loves Man on Fire and the other really hates it; the dislike is framed as a Tony Scott thing, likened to a Tony Scott barbecue of all his favorite dishes.
Approx. transcript time · 00:20:10Read transcript
The 2015 Grantland review is quoted: caper comedies are films noir without the trauma, money is fun, there are no depths to plumb.
Approx. transcript time · 00:20:53Read transcript
Romance caper movies are rare: The Thomas Crown Affair (made twice; the second is Amanda Dobbins' favorite), Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Out of Sight, Focus and Rough Cut with Burt Reynolds and Lesley-Anne Down.
Approx. transcript time · 00:21:11Read transcript
There has never been one with a Black cast; Smith is called perhaps the only Black star in one; they are rom-coms with more going on and should be made yearly, with Reindeer Games as Charlize's too-violent version.
Approx. transcript time · 00:22:09Read transcript
Catherine Zeta-Jones is called the ultimate caper-movie actress for Entrapment with Sean Connery and Intolerable Cruelty with the Coen Brothers and George Clooney, a favorite Coen movie.
Approx. transcript time · 00:22:35Read transcript
In a good caper you are never on solid footing about what is real or who double-crossed whom; the money is a MacGuffin and the caper is a metaphor for romance and trust, which Intolerable Cruelty literalizes by setting it in divorce.
Approx. transcript time · 00:23:19Read transcript
William Goldman loved caper movies and wrote Year of the Comet, about a rare wine, which bombed; these movies are hard because you must believe the prize is worth the risk and the leads would fall in love and trick each other.
Approx. transcript time · 00:25:44Read transcript
Caper movies need chemistry and movie stars, or at least people who believe they are stars.
Approx. transcript time · 00:26:37Read transcript
Margot Robbie arrived off The Wolf of Wall Street as a sensation; Focus was her next real movie and showed her as a major actress who could be young and naive, sexy, click with Smith and later more weathered.
Approx. transcript time · 00:26:54Read transcript
Four loved Robbie movies are named: The Wolf of Wall Street, Focus, I, Tonya, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, where her charisma and face carried a near-wordless role.
Approx. transcript time · 00:28:10Read transcript
The 90s Premiere-magazine phrase 'bites down hard' for actresses playing tough sexual roles is disliked; Kelly Preston, Kelly Lynch, Laura San Giacomo and Linda Fiorentino are named.
Approx. transcript time · 00:28:42Read transcript
Robbie's Wolf of Wall Street performance is judged to overshoot the part, like an actor straining to prove she belonged; the critique is said to hurt many feelings, and the part is framed as one that, played right, should have won an Oscar, in the Sharon Stone/Casino and Lorraine Bracco/Goodfellas line.
Approx. transcript time · 00:29:57Read transcript
The Wolf of Wall Street treats the character poorly without the payoff Scorsese gave Sharon Stone, Lorraine Bracco or Cathy Moriarty.
Approx. transcript time · 00:32:02Read transcript
Kathleen Turner in Body Heat is named the best-ever use of sexuality as a weapon, a unicorn performance, with William Hurt being used.
Approx. transcript time · 00:32:02Read transcript
The Focus part is better than the Wolf of Wall Street part because her sexuality is explicitly part of the plot.
Approx. transcript time · 00:32:58Read transcript
Writer-directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa (ASR 'Glenn Fokar on John Riqua') also made I Love You Phillip Morris, Crazy, Stupid, Love and Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, which was death by miscasting Tina Fey.
Approx. transcript time · 00:34:31Read transcript
The pair tend to over-script: in Focus the plotting is great and the dialogue mediocre, and the plot turns drew laughs on rewatch.
Approx. transcript time · 00:35:13Read transcript
Crazy, Stupid, Love is praised for Gosling and Emma Stone and their scenes, among the last good romantic-comedy material; the babysitter subplot is weak.
Approx. transcript time · 00:35:43Read transcript
Focus had a $50.1 million budget and made $158.8 million globally, doing okay domestically and better internationally.
Approx. transcript time · 00:37:09Read transcript
FX's Impeachment series is recommended, including Linda Tripp giving Gerald McRaney's character a tour and Sarah Paulson; Beanie Feldstein (ASR 'Beanie Feltson') as Lewinsky is called miscast by both, though doing something interesting; one participant skipped the show.
Approx. transcript time · 00:52:31Read transcript
Producer Craig, asked on air, knew Katharine Hepburn but not Spencer Tracy despite being a film major; Spencer Tracy will appear in the co-host's book.
Approx. transcript time · 01:14:05Read transcript
Australian actors' generic American accents are a pet peeve; it did not bother much in Focus but was a problem in The Wolf of Wall Street, with Chris Hemsworth in Blackhat as another example.
Approx. transcript time · 01:26:27Read transcript
Focus-type mid-budget star movies may return via Netflix; King Richard is framed cynically as existing to win Academy Awards, and Emancipation is next; Focus is one of the last star-driven mid-budget movies.
Approx. transcript time · 01:28:30Read transcript
Smith lacked a returnable franchise like Bourne or Mission: Impossible; Mike Lowrey in Bad Boys could have been it, and Martin Lawrence in Bad Boys 2 is called one of the 20 greatest performances ever, prompting an invitation to a Bad Boys 2 episode.
Approx. transcript time · 01:30:32Read transcript