Starring: Margot Robbie, Will Smith, and Rodrigo Santoro
Distributor: Roadshow Films
Runtime: 105 mins. Reviewed in Mar 2015
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This American comedy drama tells the story of a seasoned and experienced con-man, Nicky Spurgeon, who decides to train Jess, an inexperienced amateur in the trade.
The film is caught between being a story of a burgeoning romance between its two main characters, Nicky (Will Smith) and Jess (Margot Robbie), and a tale about two accomplished con-artists. The strike up a relationship that complicates both their abilities to deceive.
The film’s comic elements draw impact from the adventures of people, trained not to trust each other. Jess tries at first to seduce Nicky in a hotel room, just before her “husband” bursts into the room to object. Jesse has set up a scam to con Nicky that he easily sees through, and Nicky decides to train Jess to do things much better the next time around. When she succeeds in her training, Nicky recruits her to join his “team”.
While Nick introduces Jess expertly to the sophisticated tricks of the con-trade, he falls in love with his protege. Nick becomes worried that his feelings for Jess will throw him off the game, and to preserve his skill he breaks off his relationship with her. Three years later, after they have separated, Jess appears unexpectedly as a seasoned con-woman on the opposite side of Nicky’s scam against a billionaire racing car owner, Rafael Garriga (Rodrigo Santoro), who is the owner of a Formula 1 racing team. Jess employs her seductive, con-woman routines to spoil Nicky’s deception.
The scam with Rafael is dangerous, and Jesse’s involvement in it complicates both the outcome of the scam for Nicky, and his relationship with her. The plot twists and turns, but never retreats from offering the viewer a stylish look at con-artist tactics. One dupe, in particular, which involves Nicky betting huge amounts of money recklessly at a football game, while a genuinely distraught Jesse looks on, holds its tension especially well.
Throughout the film, Jesse plays the tempting femme fatale against Nicky’s charming, expert hustler. We hardly ever get an inkling of what lies behind both their facades. In the final part of the film, when Nicky turns up in Buenos Aires to scam Rafael, it is hard to know whether he wants to win back Jess, who he sees hanging onto Rafael’s arm, or he wants to con a rich billionaire out of his money.
Reflecting the intended meaning of the film’s title, the perfect con is all about diverting the viewer’s focus from where the action really is, and in this film, the viewer is asked to constantly re-focus, and to focus again elsewhere. Drawing again on the meaning of the film’s title, the movie has you looking for lots of other things, just in case you might miss the unpredictable twists in the plot that are yet to happen.
This is a film that problematically avoids any hint of a moral position on deception. If you are good at behaving badly, the movie seems to say, deception and theft are part and parcel of a noble, unobjectionable and wonderful art. It says and does nothing to address the issue of deception itself. It just wants to entertain around the edges of the concept.
The chemistry between Will Smith and Margot Robbie works very well, and Margot Robbie delivers a terrific performance. The film’s script piles up a mountain of twists and double crosses, but along the way the film’s two Directors (Ficarra and Requa) show some fascinating sleight-of-hand sequences indicating how easy it is to dupe people. As Nicky tells Jess during her training, “you put your hand there, and you steal from here”.
This is an enjoyable film that entertains in a slick way, but its slickness has it staying mostly at the level of snappy duping and glamorous romancing, and it is a film that trades on the art of mis-direction in a sexy fashion. As the movie winds towards its conclusion, multiple levels of duplicity abound, and the movie begins to look too smart for its own good. It keeps you superficially absorbed and entertained, without being dramatically convinced. But it entertains!
This is a film that keeps you wondering about who is conning who. In many ways, the film has us waiting suspiciously for “Focus II”. Jesse whispers to Nicky “trust me” in the final moments of the film, but we don’t yet know “why”.
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