The Weekend Warrior: Focus, The Lazarus Effect

This weekend is somewhat significant as it brings box office mega-superstar Will Smith back to theaters for the first time since 2013’s disastrous After Earth—we won’t remind anyone of Smith’s odd cameo in last year’s bomb Winter’s Tale, because we’re trying to be nicer this year. This week, he headlines the heist comedy Focus (Warner Bros.), joined by Margot Robbie, best known for her turn as Leonardo DiCaprio’s trophy wife in Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street. This is a different kind of movie for Smith in that it’s not a big budget summer blockbuster but is rather more like Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s 11 with Smith carrying the film rather than having an ensemble of all-star actors.

Before bombing with After Earth, Smith had returned to one of his biggest franchise with Men in Black 3, which grossed $179 million domestic and $624 million worldwide in May 2012. Sure, After Earth was a stumbling block in Smith’s otherwise exemplary showing at the box office, but even that made $60 million as did his previous disappointment, the drama Seven Pounds in 2008. Before that, he was in a long string of movies that grossed anywhere between $139 and $260 million with 2007’s I Am Legend and 2008’s Hancock both opening over $60 million and grossing more than $220 million. It’s pretty clear that After Earth aside, Smith hasn’t quite reached the point of a Johnny Depp where his movies aren’t getting people into theaters anymore, and he still has enough fans that he can delve into different genres.

His co-star, Ms. Robbie, hasn’t quite made waves beyond her appearance in Scorsese’s film, but she’s getting a lot more attention these days, firstly for her leading role in the Sundance film Z for Zachariah which will open later this year, and she also scored the coveted role of Jane in next year’s Tarzan movie and will play Harley Quinn in Warner Bros.’ 2016 comic book movie Suicide Squad, opposite Will Smith. There’s little question that we’ll be seeing a lot more of Robbie in the coming years and Focus is going to be the start of a long career for the Australian ingénue. 

One thing that’s good about Focus is that it returns Smith to the romantic territory of Hitch, which was a huge hit for Smith almost exactly ten years ago. That opened with $43 million on its way to $179 million domestic and another $188 million overseas, a blockbuster hit that was greatly helped by its Valentine’s Day opening. Focus has an R rating which may limit its audience to older moviegoers, although that’s sort of a given since it seems like more of a grown-up movie than his summer action movies. 

Focus’ audience should be evenly split between men and women with a wide age range of moviegoers from twenty and up, and Smith’s previous track records should help it do decently, probably somewhere in the $20 to 25 million range for opening, and it will probably end up in the same $60 to 70 million range as some of his smaller movies.

 My thoughts…

Con artists Nicky Spurgeon (Will Smith) meets the beautiful Jess Barrett (Margot Robbie) at a hotel bar in New York, but Nick is onto Jess’ scam and she’s impressed enough by him catching her that she wants to learn from him. A few months later, she joins his team down in New Orleans for the Super Bowl where Nicky runs a well-tuned operation robbing tourists of their belongings. As might be expected, Nicky and Jess’ relationship turns romantic, but it makes it difficult for them to walk away once the job is done.

While movies about conmen are nothing new, Focus takes a different approach than something like The Grifters or others since it’s built around the romantic chemistry between Smith and Robbie, both good-looking actors who have a substantial amount of charm. It’s a decent role for Smith, closer to his role in Hitch, but he doesn’t really seem to be trying too much, and it’s impressive how well Robbie holds her own against him with her undeniable screen presence, so this isn’t just “The Will Smith Show.”

The story is told in an episodic fashion with the short bit in New York followed by a longer stint in New Orleans and then cutting forward a few years to Nicky trying to pull an elaborate con on his own in Buenos Aires involving a sports car racing scam before Jess reenters the picture.

It’s a little unfortunate that this is the fourth movie about someone with a gambling problem in recent months after The Gambler, Wild Card and the Sundance film Mississipi Grind, because it means the climactic scene of Smith’s increasingly larger bets against a rich Chinese man in a skybox at the Super Bowl isn’t nearly as effective.

Smith and Robbie are perfectly cable of carrying the movie, but its real secret weapons are Adrian Martinez as one of Nicky’s top guys, and especially Gerald McRaney as the enforcer who gives some great rants to Nicky about “young people” during the third act in Buenos Aires.

For the most part, you may spend the movie expecting everything is a con, because that’s the general conceit on which everything’s built, but it works better than one might expect, even if you know where things are going, because there are still enough twists and turns and surprises.

It’s quite a step forward for filmmakers Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, who have done a couple romantic comedies in the past but show more depth with everything about this one, which is a stylish-looking film. They ably channel Soderbergh and Scorsese with the way the movie is filmed although the use of the Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” is a little on the nose. 

Focus is rated R but it’s a soft R, mainly for the use of the F-word and some violence and sex, but nothing you wouldn’t see on network television. It’s not like 13 year olds will have any interest in this type of movie, but it’s another example of how the MPAA constantly gives much more violent movie the PG-13 rating.

Still, all of it works as a nice mix of old school romance with an inside look at the world of con men and pick pockets, which ultimately does make for an entertainment film.

Rating: 7.5/10

While Olivia Wilde certainly has done her share of big movies, she’s been doing smaller movies in recent years so this is going to be selling it more on the premise than its cast. Even Donald Glover’s fanbase from “Community” or his rap career as Childish Gambino may not realize he’s in the movie. Mark Duplass has done his share of genre films, but mostly smaller movies like Baghead and Creep, so it’s hard to think fans of his work on shows like HBO’s “Togetherness” or “The League” would go see the movie for him.

Horror movies can be hard to predict, because it’s as much about the young audience’s interest as it is in the marketing, and these days, you never know if a horror movie is going to connect with that audience or not. The trailer does give a lot of the film away, but the film certainly has commercials that make it look scary and freaky.

Relativity released the horror film Oculus last year and it opened with $12 million on its way to $27.7 million domestic, but The Lazarus Effect has a better title and an easier to understand premise, plus it doesn’t have as much competition as Oculus did when it opened last April (in the second weekend of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, no less). That makes me think that $12 million may be the low end although it might not be enough of a draw to do that much better.

On the other hand, last weekend was relatively slow and there hasn’t been a horror movie in a couple of months, so that’s a good market for The Lazarus Effect to do well, although it’s likely to get a lot of its audience on Thursday night and Friday as horror movies generally are frontloaded. Figure on it making somewhere between $12 and 14 million its opening weekend on its way to around $30 to 35 million total.

The Lazarus Effect Review

While Focus will definitely be #1 and The Lazarus Effect will make a strong play for #2, the real race will be for third place as last week’s Top 3 will be vying for the same general range of $9 to 10 million with all the big TV events (Super Bowl, Grammys, Oscars, SNL #40) having passed. Also, look for the Mexican film A La Mala to make a surprise entry into the Top 10 despite opening in just 350 theaters, being the follow-up to the filmmaker’s Pulling Strings which opened with $2.5 million a few years back. The movies that should get the biggest bumps from their Oscar wins will be The Imitation Game and Still Alice, which are still playing in a significant number of theaters, while Whiplash is available on DVD and Blu-ray this week so look for more people to check that out finally.

This Week’s Predictions –

1. Focus (Warner Bros.) – $24.5 million N/A (up $3.9 million)

2. The Lazarus Effect (Relativity) – $13.3 million N/A (up .9 million)

3. Kingsman: The Secret Service (20th Century Fox) – $10 million -45%

4. The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water (Paramount) – $10 million -40%

5. Fifty Shades of Grey (Universal) – $9.6 million -57%

6. McFarland, USA (Disney) – $7.1 million -36%

7. American Sniper (Warner Bros.) – $6.5 million -35%

8. The DUFF (CBS Films) – $5.8 million -47%

9. Hot Tub Time Machine 2 (Paramount) – $2.5 million -58%

10. A La Mala (Lionsgate/Pantelion Films) – $2.2 million N/A

11. The Imitation Game (The Weinstein Company) – $2 million -23%

Next Week: 

District 9 filmmaker Neill Blomkamp returns with the robotic Chappie (Sony), starring Sharlto Copley, Hugh Jackman, Dev Patel and South African rappers Die Antwoord, while Vince Vaughn, Dave Franco and Tom Wilksinson tie up some Unfinished Business (20th Century Fox) and the AARP cast of The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (Fox Searchlight), including Dame Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, Maggie Smith and Richard Gere, return for the sequel.

This Week’s Must-Sees 

I first saw this a year ago when it premiered at the Berlinale and I’ve since seen it twice. It was my first experience seeing the fantastic work of O’Connell who also appeared in the prison flick Starred Up last year, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a movie about the conflict in Northern Ireland that’s handled with the amount of tension of Demange’s directorial debut, which has more action than these films normally have. It’s almost guaranteed to make it into my “Top 25” this year.

New York Film Festival Preview

Interview with Yann Demange (Later This Week)

The Hunting Ground (RADiUS-TWC)

Director: Kirby Dick

Of Note: Documentary filmmaker Kirby Dick and his The Invisible War producer Amy Ziering reteam for a look at sexual abuse at some of the top colleges in the country. The stats are shocking how many women at college have been sexually assaulted while attending college and the film looks at the “rape culture” on college that’s contributed to by the fraternities and the high-profile of college sports stars with moving testimonials from some of the young women who have been assaulted. The crux of the story follows two survivors turned activists, Andrea Pino and Annie Clark, who go around the country helping other survivors to bring the way victims are treated by the college powers-that-be which rarely punish the perpetrators of sexual assault on their campuses to avoid bad publicity. It’s another amazing doc from Dick and Ziering that would not surprise me in the least if it ends up being nominated for an Oscar next year.

Ana Maria in Novela Land (Fluency Studios)

Director: Georgina Garcia Riedel

Stars: Edy Ganem, Michael Steger, Luis Guzman, Elizabeth Peña, Mercedes Mason, Sung Kang,

Of Note: Ana Maria (Edy Ganem) is an avid fan of her telenovela shows, but on a particularly bad day, she discovers herself transported into the world of her favorite shows as she switches places with her favorite character, Ariana Tomosa (Mercedes Mason).

My Life Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn (RADiUS-TWC)

Director: Liv Corfixen

Stars: Ryan Gosling, Nicolas Winding Refn, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Liv Corfixen

Of Note: Nicolas Winding Refn is one of the most interesting directors I’ve interviewed, having spoken to him four or five times over the years, but he’s also quite an enigma as this documentary by his wife Liv Corfixen shows. 

Other Limited Releases of Note:

Maps to the Stars (Focus World)

Director: David Cronenberg

Stars: Mia Wasikowska, Julianne Moore, John Cusack, Robert Pattinson, Olivia Williams, Sarah Gadon,Evan Bird

Of Note: Written by Bruce Wagner (A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors), this continues David Cronenberg’s departure from horror and genre with Mia Wasikowska as Agatha, a scarred young woman who has been released from a psych ward who gets a job as a personal assistant with a Hollywood actress on a downwards spiral (Julianne Moore) while being haunted by the ghost of her mother (Sarah Gadon) and forming a relationship with a limo driver (Robert Pattinson). The film also looks at the family of a child star, Evan Bird’s Benjie, an addict at the age of 13 whose parents (John Cusack, Olivia Williams) are having trouble keeping him in line. Following its festival run, which began at Cannes 2014, it opens in select cities and presumably on VOD this Friday.

A La Mala (Lionsgate/Pantelion Films)

Director: Pitipol Ybarra

Stars: Aislinn Derbez, Mauricio Ochmann, Aurora Papile, Luis Arrieta, Daniela Schmidt, Juan Diego Covarrubias

Of Note: The director of the 2013 Mexican hit Pulling Strings (which grossed $5.8 million after a $2.5 million opening in 387 theaters) returns with a romantic comedy about an aspiring actress whose best friend asks her to flirt with her boyfriend to test his fidelity, something that she turns into a career. It opens in 350 theaters and could make a play for the Top 10.

Wild Canaries (Sundance Selects)

Writer/Director: Lawrence Michael Levine

Stars: Jason Ritter, Alia Shawkat, Sophia Takal, Lawrence Michael Levine, Kevin Corrigan, Annie Parisse

Of Note: A Brooklyn couple (writer/director Levine and his real wife Sophia Takal) suspect foul play when their downstairs neighbor dies, so they go looking for the killer. Having premiered at last year’s SXSW Film, it opens at New York’s IFC Center and on VOD on Wednesday.

The Salvation (IFC Films)

Director: Kristian Levring

Stars: Mads Mikkelsen, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Eva Green, Jonathan Pryce, Douglas Henshall, Michael Raymond-James, Mikael Persbrandt, Eric Cantona

Of Note: Danish filmmaker Kristian Levring (The King is Alive) makes a Western that takes place in 1870s America starring Mads Mikkelsen as a man who gets revenge on his family’s murderer, only to unleash the vengeance of a gang leader named Delarue (played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan). This revenge thriller co-starring Eva Green and Jonathan Pryce opens in select cities and VOD on Friday. 

Bluebird (Factory 25)

Director: Lance Edmands

Stars: Amy Morton, John Slattery, Louisa Krause, Margo Martindale, Emily Meade, Adam Driver

Of Note: Amy Morton (“Blue Bloods,” “Chicago Fire”) plays a school bus driver who spots a bluebird as she is completing her route causing an event that shakes up her Maine logging town. Also starring Adam Driver, John Slattery and Margo Martindale, it opens in New York at the Cinema Village on Friday. 

Out of the Dark (Vertical Entertainment)

Director: Lluis Quilez

Stars: Scott Speedman, Julia Stiles, Stephen Rea

Of Note: A ghost story set in South America where a family needs to confront ghosts and a haunting family secret.

You can post any comments or questions below, or you can get in touch with the Weekend Warrior on Twitter.

Copyright 2015 Edward Douglas