MA

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3 stars

In this romantic crime caper, Margot Robbie and Will Smith are well cast as a glamorous pair of grifters, Jess and Nicky, who look like they really should be together. They look great together, two beautiful people in exotic locations like New Orleans and Buenos Aires who can work the floor superbly, picking pockets with guile, style and charm.

After they meet in a bar it turns out they are in the same sort of business. Nicky takes Jess under his wing until she becomes so good enough he inducts his star intern into his firm, a multi-million dollar industrial scale army of scammers and pick-pockets. No, Nick is not aiming for the one big hit on which he can subsequently retire in Antigua, he's into 'volume'.

Jess is all ears and eyes at Nicky's tutorials in crime. There are a myriad ways to distract and divert attention like wearing a low-cut slinky dress or having someone fake a heart attack while someone else on the team can empty pockets or slip rings and watches away from their moorings. A montage of subliminal messages on the way to a major scam at the Super Dome shows Nicky is into amateur psychology too.

It's all in the name of fun and co-directors John Requaa and Glenn Ficarra, who have partnered before on Bad Santa and Crazy Stupid Love, keep it light at all times. They had a 'theatrical pickpocket' called Apollo Robbins advising them. Robbins has a standalone end credit as the 'con artist and pickpocket designer'. He is apparently famous for pick pocketing a guard on the security detail for President Carter, so we can imagine that he would know what's what. (The character with the same name of Apollo is one and the same.)

Nicky, nickname "Mellow", would be the man but for two fatal weaknesses, gambling and now that he's met her, Jess. Robbie's Jess is at the heart of the film too, the object of desire in her elegant retro wardrobe like a latter day Grace Kelly.

However, 'tis a pity that in her first lead role since her cameo in The Wolf of Wall Street, the Australian actress didn't pick a project with better results. There's one too many twists and turns generating a bit of a narrative wobble a couple of key parts that are clumsily overplayed. Robert Taylor's turn as a crude Australian race driver doesn't add much either.

Yet, the film's cheerful theme that everyone's "an easy grift" makes for buoyant light entertainment, even when it skirts briefly into sex and violence. Focus is not going to stay with you indefinitely, but it is a welcome retrospective on the old movies that did petty crims and swindlers with charm and style.