Movie Review For February 27, 2015

FOCUS
Rated: R
Stars: Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Gerald McRaney, Adrian Martinez
Plot: A con-man brings on a female apprentice, but it's all a game of who is conning who.
Trailer

Clint Says: Wait until after opening weekend, but see this in theaters

If you are looking for a fun, edge-of-your-seat, high-stakes con movie, FOCUS will completely satisfy. This film is exciting, smooth, intense and has enough twists and turns that, even though the information is right in front of you, you won't figure out the con until the very end.

For the most part everything in this movie is done well and rings true. There are a couple of things that are put in for convenience, but those can be easily forgiven since the rest of the film holds up so well.

This is a nice change of pace for Will Smith and a much better introduction to Margot Robbie than we got in THE WOLF OF WALL STREET. Their chemistry is great, which is nice because we will be seeing them together again in the near future in SUICIDE SQUAD. The show stealer, though, is Adrian Martinez. He is pee-your-pants funny and just a great all-around character.

I was surprised that this film was rated R. It deserves that rating, but just barely. I think they could have made a much better and wider-reaching film had they edited down to a PG-13 rating.

The best thing about this film is that you can just sit back and enjoy the con. It doesn't take a lot of brain power, nor does it keep important details from you. Everything is there, you just have to focus.




THE LAZARUS EFFECT
Rated: PG-13
Stars: Olivia Wilde, Mark Duplass
Plot: A group of scientists create a way to bring life back from the dead, but their experiment has deadly consequences
Trailer

Clint Says: Wait for the DVD and let someone else rent it

When I saw the trailer for this movie I was really hoping it would be a smart thriller, instead it's a hack horror flick with plot holes the size of California and, quite possibly, the worst excuse ever for someone to go on a killing spree.

This movie cocks in at about an hour and twenty minutes, but that is still too long. This should have been a short film. It still would have been horrible, but at least then we would have only had to endure 45 minutes of it.

There are so many things in this movie that are never explained, or done out of convenience that even the most casual movie-goer will be annoyed. I don't even think the uber-fans of the horror genre are going to like this film.