Entertainment

Film Review: ‘Focus’

Published

10 years ago

March 3, 2015

Oakland Post

Will Smith and Margot Robbie co-star in the con artist movie Focus. (Courtesy Photo)

By Dwight Brown
NNPA Film Critic

After Earth, Men in Black 3, Seven Pounds… It’s been a while since Will Smith lived up to his star status in a film worth having his name above the marquee. As Nicky, a con artist’s con artist in Focus, he redeems himself somewhat in a generic but often entertaining game of who’s fooling who.

Nicky Spurgeon – part con artist and part thief – was trained by his dad and granddad in the fine art of deception: Focus your victim’s attention in one direction, while you steal him blind out of his line of vision. One night in a New York bar, Jess (Margot Robbie, The Wolf of Wall Street), a novice shyster, picks him up and brings him back to her hotel. Her enraged husband barges into the room demanding money from Nicky, or he’ll kill him. Don’t BS a BSer. Nick knows the two are on the con. He schools them. That would have been the end of a strange night, except Jess wants to learn the ropes from a master and Nicky is smitten with the svelte blonde.

Nicky works Jess into his gang of thieves. In New Orleans, they pickpocket, swipe jewelry and steal money with a nerve and rhythm that is precision. At a football game, Nicky schemes on a wealthy man named Liyuan (BD Wong) who likes to bet on anything. He pulls an unwitting Jess into his ruse. Once he’s done, he leaves her. Three years later in Buenos Aries, Nicky shows up for a job involving the racecar world and a coveted algorithm. He’s working for a slick dude named Garriga (Rodrigo Santoro). He’s shocked one night when he finds a beautiful blonde cozying up to his mark. It’s Jess.

The cagey film The Grifters, starring Annette Bening, Anjelica Houston and John Cusack, directed by Stephen Frears, set the bar real high for all con artist movies that followed. This nicely crafted and very slick looking production isn’t as gripping or original as the aforementioned, but that doesn’t stop it from being fun. You won’t be astonished, but you won’t be bored either.

Writer/directors Glenn Ficara and John Requa (Crazy, Stupid, Love) mix in enough hijinks (thieves working a New Orleans crowd), violence (a car crash, punched faces and gun play) and titillation (Smith goes bare chest, Robbie does not, their modest love sex scene lacks chemistry) to keep your interests piqued. The screenplay has a lot of twists and turns, and you can’t quite guess where the story is leading, though you know instinctively that a big con is coming.

Jan Kovac’s (Curb Your Enthusiasm) editing is pretty nimble and well accommodates the film’s four acts, which unfold in 104 minutes. There is a happy marriage between Xavier Grobet’s (Mother and Child) glossy cinematography, Beth Mickle’s (Thanks for Sharing) production design and Kelly Curley’s art direction, which tends to favor teal blue. The musical score by Nick Urata (I Love You Phillip Morris) is reminiscent of 1980s hip nightclub music, like the hit song “Ghost Town” by The Specials.

Margot Robbie, certainly tall and beautiful in a Victoria Secrets kind of way, has a tough interior. Adrian Martinez (American Hustle) as Farhad, one of Nicky’s cronies, brings humor to the gang. As Jess sits in the back seat and Nicky drives the car, Farhad blurts out, “You hitting that?” Gerald McRaney (TV’s House of Cards) plays the perfect henchman. Rodrigo Santoro is fine as the Argentinean playboy, but he was much more electric in 300: Rise of an Empire.

Will Smith carries this film on shoulders. His cool demeanor and devil-may-care attitude are appealing. He has tremendous stage presence and he knows how to work the camera. Physically, for a 47 year-old-man, he’s in great shape and aging like Dorian Grey. What Smith’s career needs now, is a blockbuster that can put him back on top of the heap.

Focus is a bit too slick, but engaging nonetheless. It doesn’t give up. It doesn’t stop. Or, as Nicky puts it, “Never drop the con. Die with the lie.”

Visit NNPA Film Critic Dwight Brown at DwightBrownInk.com.

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Arts and Culture

BOOK REVIEW: Love, Rita: An American Story of Sisterhood, Joy, Loss, and Legacy

When Bridgett M. Davis was in college, her sister Rita was diagnosed with lupus, a disease of the immune system that often left her constantly tired and sore. Davis was a bit unfazed, but sympathetic to Rita’s suffering and also annoyed that the disease sometimes came between them. By that time, they needed one another more than ever.

Published

5 days ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

Love Rita Book Cover. Courtesy of Harper.

By Terri Schlichenmeyer

Author: Bridgett M. Davis, c.2025, Harper, $29.99, 367 Pages

Take care.

Do it because you want to stay well, upright, and away from illness. Eat right, swallow your vitamins and hydrate, keep good habits and hygiene, and cross your fingers. Take care as much as you can because, as in the new book, “Love, Rita” by Bridgett M. Davis, your well-being is sometimes out of your hands.

It was a family story told often: when Davis was born, her sister, Rita, then four years old, stormed up to her crying newborn sibling and said, ‘Shut your … mouth!’

Rita, says Davis, didn’t want a little sister then. She already had two big sisters and a neighbor who was somewhat of a “sister,” and this baby was an irritation. As Davis grew, the feeling was mutual, although she always knew that Rita loved her.

Over the years, the sisters tried many times not to fight — on their own and at the urging of their mother — and though division was ever present, it eased when Rita went to college. Davis was still in high school then, and she admired her big sister.

She eagerly devoured frequent letters sent to her in the mail, signed, “Love, Rita.”

When Davis was in college herself, Rita was diagnosed with lupus, a disease of the immune system that often left her constantly tired and sore. Davis was a bit unfazed, but sympathetic to Rita’s suffering and also annoyed that the disease sometimes came between them. By that time, they needed one another more than ever.

First, they lost their father. Drugs then invaded the family and addiction stole two siblings. A sister and a young nephew were murdered in a domestic violence incident. Their mother was devastated; Rita’s lupus was an “added weight of her sorrow.”

After their mother died of colon cancer, Rita’s lupus took a turn for the worse.

“Did she even stand a chance?” Davis wrote in her journal.

“It just didn’t seem possible that she, someone so full of life, could die.”

Let’s start here: once you get past the prologue in “Love, Rita,” you may lose interest. Maybe.

Most of the stories that author Bridgett M. Davis shares are mildly interesting, nothing rare, mostly commonplace tales of growing up in the 1960s and ’70s with a sibling. There are a lot of these kinds of stories, and they tend to generally melt together. After about fifty pages of them, you might start to think about putting the book aside.

But don’t. Not quite yet.

In between those everyday tales, Davis occasionally writes about being an ailing Black woman in America, the incorrect assumptions made by doctors, the history of medical treatment for Black people (women in particular), attitudes, and mythologies. Those passages are now and then, interspersed, but worth scanning for.

This book is perhaps best for anyone with the patience for a slow-paced memoir, or anyone who loves a Black woman who’s ill or might be ill someday. If that’s you and you can read between the lines, then “Love, Rita” is a book to take in carefully.

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Faces Around the Bay: Author Karen Lewis Took the ‘Detour to Straight Street’

“My life has been a roller-coaster with an unlimited ride wristband! I was raised in Berkeley during the time of Ron Dellums, the Black Panthers, and People’s Park. I was a Hippie kid, my Auntie cut off all our hair so we could wear the natural styles like her and Angela Davis.

Published

5 days ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

Karen Lewis. Courtesy photo.

By Barbara Fluhrer

I met Karen Lewis on a park bench in Berkeley. She wrote her story on the spot.

I got married young, then ended up getting divorced, raising two boys into men. After my divorce, I had a stroke that left me blind and paralyzed. I was homeless, lost in a fog with blurred vision.

Jesus healed me! I now have two beautiful grandkids. At 61, this age and this stage, I am finally free indeed. Our Lord Jesus Christ saved my soul. I now know how to be still. I lay at his feet. I surrender and just rest. My life and every step on my path have already been ordered. So, I have learned in this life…it’s nice to be nice. No stressing, just blessings. Pray for the best and deal with the rest.

Nobody is perfect, so forgive quickly and love easily!”

Lewis’ book “Detour to Straight Street” is available on Amazon.

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Activism

S.F. Businesswomen Honor Trailblazers at 44th Annual Sojourner Truth Awards and Scholarship Luncheon

This year’s well-deserved award recipients were women who graciously and continuously have served and empowered the Bayview community and beyond.

Published

5 days ago

April 27, 2025

Oakland Post

Carletta Jackson-Lane, 21st Western District governor of the National Association of the Business and Professional Women’s Club, Inc. sits with honoree Carol E. Tatum the 2025 Sojourner Truth Award recipient of the NAB&PW, Inc. Photo courtesy of Sheryl Smith.

By Rev. Dr. Rochelle Frazier
Special to The Post

On Saturday, April 19, the San Francisco Business and Professional Women’s Club (SFBPWC) held its sold-out 44th Annual Sojourner Truth Awards and Scholarship Luncheon at the Southeast Community Center at 1550 Evans Ave. in San Francisco.

The luncheon’s theme was “Moving Forward with a Purpose: From Trailblazers to Game Changers.”

This year’s well-deserved award recipients were women who graciously and continuously have served and empowered the Bayview community and beyond.

Carol Evora Tatum received the National Sojourner Truth Meritorious Service Award for her decades of leadership and dedicated community service.

Brittany Doyle, founder and CEO of WISE Health SF, was honored as the Businesswoman of the Year because of her insightful and innovative business acumen regarding community-centered health programs.

La Shon A. Walker was recognized as the Professional Woman of the Year for her community empowerment and leadership work as the vice president of Community Affairs at FivePoint.

The luncheon also provides an opportunity to present scholarships to well-deserving students. The scholarship awardees were Jayana Harbor and Zari Moore, both graduating from Immaculate Conception Academy, and London Robinson, who is graduating from Raoul Wallenberg Traditional High School.

Harbor plans to attend Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland; Moore will attend Loyola University in New Orleans, and Robinson will attend Southern University and A&M College in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

“The 44th Annual Sojourner Truth Awards and Scholarship Luncheon is more than a celebration,” said Cheryl Smith, president of SFBPWC. “It’s a tribute to the legacy of Black women who have paved the way and made a commitment to uplifting future generations. We are proud to honor extraordinary leaders in our community and invest in the bright minds who will carry us into the future.”