FOCUS - Will Smith the Genius Con Artist

I did not have the chance to watch this movie in theater last year, or it never played at all? Can not really be sure as even if it really played last year, then it did not make a wave of audience flocking to the theaters. Anyway, I watched this in HBO last night as it premiered for the first time on TV (they usually showed new movies every Saturday night at 8PM Indonesia time. So if you are not having any plan on Saturday night, and if you subscribe to cable TV, then it might be good for you to watch a "not so old" movie such as this one. 

Brief Story Line

Movie started with the scene of Nicky (played by Will Smith - Independence Day, Men In Black, etc) who was being seduced by a lady named Jess (played by Margot Robbie - The Wolf of Wallstreet, Suicide Squad) and "found out" by her "husband". Apparently Nicky knew from the beginning that he was being conned, so he even advised Jess to always focus during a con. Later, Nicky provided some inputs to Jess on how to be a better pick-pocket and also informed her that in this line of work, they must be ready for any kind of situation. Even Nicky's father during one of his con did the surprising thing by shooting his own father during a con gone wrong, to avoid them being caught. It was called the "Toledo Panic Button".

In next scenes, Nicky went to New Orleans and had big plans to score during a major football game. He was accompanied by Horst (his 2nd hand man) and Farhad (1 of his best partner). Jess who already made up her mind that she wanted to be part of Nicky's crew, tried to convince him that she was good enough. So as a test, Nicky asked Horst to see if she was able to pick pocket people which Jess successfully done so. With Jess becoming the newest member, Nicky soon felt emotional attachment, which was actually not a good idea in their line of business. Hence after finishing their biggest score and con together, they went on their separate ways.

Three years later in Buenos Aires, Nicky was being hired by Garriga (played by Rodrigo Santoro - 300 and others), a wealthy business man who owned a racing car team with a very good computerized racing system which all their competitors wanted to get their hands on. As part of the con, Nicky would sell a modified system to Garriga's fiercest competitor, McEwen which Nicky would keep the money, on top of what Garriga would pay. By doing so, Garriga wanted to get rid of his competition. In the con, Nicky would act like 1 of Garriga's disgruntled technician and to convince McEwen, they would do a dramatized "fight" during a party. However, all the plan go haywire as suddenly, out of nowhere, Jess showed up and kissed Garriga. The con also became more complicated with the extra suspicious Owens (played by Gerald McRaney), Garriga's head of security. 

So can Nicky go through with this con when his previous love interest showed up again? Is Nicky going to try win Jess' heart again? Find out all the cons until the end of the movie.

End of Brief Story Line

Well, I personally quite enjoy the movie. As usual movie involving cons always intrigued us in the sense we are always kept guessing which one is a con and which one is real. We will never know who ends up being conned in the end. 

Even though the cons in this movie are not at the highest level but in the end, there were still plenty of twists and surprises to make it interesting.

I also found the supporting character Farhad (Adrian Martinez) fun to watch and Nicky's relationship with Jess interesting as well.

So if you happen to like this kind of genre, then maybe this one is an option for you to watch. As I said in the beginning, the film is playing in HBO and you definitely can watch it at least once a day during this whole week. It could be fun...

Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars

ZOOTOPIA - A Rabbit's Dream of Making the World a Better Place

I heard people talked about this movie for many days and they all say that it is a very good film. When I saw the synopsis and noticed this was a Disney movie, I thought to myself that it definitely should be a good movie. Anyway, after playing for like less than 2 weeks, it's getting difficult to look for cinemas that are playing this movie as somehow in the 1st week of march we were flooded by 3 or 4 new movies.

On Saturday, 5 March 2016, as part of my personal "movie marathon", I chose to watch this movie first. It started with a scene where Judy Hopps, a cute 9 year old rabbit playing in a school drama about all animals can be whoever they want to be, especially in Zootopia, a metropolis town. Judy's parents, Stu and Bonnie seem to be worried watching the show as Judy wants to be a police. 15 years later, after all the hard difficult training, Judy really graduated from police academy and becoming the first ever rabbit to become a police. The mayor Lionheart (a lion) accompanied by his assistant Dawn Bellweather (a sheep) announce this big occasion. 

Judy finally was assigned to Zootopia, just as her dream. She stayed in a tiny little apartment where the wall was very thin and voices from the neighbor can be heard. On her first day at work, Judy was assigned to parking duty by his captain Bogo (a buffalo) despite there is a case of 14 missing mammals. During this assignment she met a fox, Nick Wilde who she helped to buy ice cream for his "son" but he turned out to be a con-artist.

Judy started to feel that her dream is not as good as the reality because of what Nick told her and she was always assigned the parking duty. On one day at work, she was able to capture a weasel who stole something which I thought was vegetables but instead of getting the credit, she was complained by Captain Bogo. While she was being scolded, Mrs. Otterton (an otter) came to Bogo's room requesting help to find her husband who has been missing. Judy immediately offered to help since Bogo was not willing to assign anyone to assist. Even though Bogo was very upset, but since Assistant mayor Dawn informed the mayor about this, he has no choice but to allow Judy to proceed. Bogo forced Judy to solve the case in 48 hours and she should resign if she is unable to do so.

Judy did the investigation with the help from Nick Wilde. They both nicely combined into a good pair of investigators, although Judy is always very careful about Nick since he is a fox who has a habit of always conning. The investigation itself lead them to a lot of twists which I think if you are looking closely enough, you will be able to guess. There are also various characters that even though only appeared in very few scenes, but they were all having some sort of relation or providing clues to the investigation. Notable characters are Yax the Yak in the naturalist club, Flash the sloth, Mr. Big the mafia, Gazelle the singer (maybe some of you can guess the person behind her voice). 

So will Judy be able to complete the task on time to keep her job as police officer? Is there any relation between the missing Mr. Otterton and the other 14 missing mammals? What will happen to Nick who is only helping Judy because he is being "forced" to?  Can Judy and Nick become real friends or their relationship become worse because of a fox's nature to always con? Find out by your self.

I would recommend that you start to watch it soon, as I think by the time Kungfu Panda 3 hits the theaters next week, it will be even harder to locate a cinema still showing this one.

I had a wonderful moment watching this movie. All Disney values are there like in all the other classic Disney movies. There are some funny moments where you can laugh, touching moments where you can feel sorry and happy for Judy, even to Nick. However, I do get the feeling that this movie is a little bit mature and the messages might be difficult to absorb for children of younger age. Especially since the movie itself evolving around missing animals investigation which is usually seen in detective movies or TV series. But then again, that's just me. A lot of people say this is good movie for kids. Anyway, if you are really into a good Disney family movie, please watch it. I am very sure you will find it worth your while.

Ooo, 1 more thing. This is not a musical film like Frozen. The only song that you can see will be Gazelle singing in the end credit. This movie is good for whole family, for couples and even good enough as dating movie. 

Mike's movie moments rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars