Stupidity: With the threat of strangulating Jess, Garriga coerces a false confession from Nicky about the complicity of Jess. Garriga then laughs, calls Nicky out on it, and points out the confession's deficiencies. The film treats the whole scene as an astute reveal à la Sherlock Holmes! Nobody notices, let alone points out, that a coerced confession is worthless. In reality, Garriga would feel very stupid because he almost murdered someone. For the same reason, Jess must feel very angry.
Focus (2015)
1 stupidity
Directed by: Glenn Ficarra, John Requa
Starring: Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Gerald McRaney, Rodrigo Santoro, BD Wong, Adrian Martinez
Continuity mistake: The amount of blood on Nicky's chest when he is shot by his dad changes between angles.
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Answer: Absolutely. There are many people (especially people who work on high commissions and con men) who are well practiced in subtle cues with body language. The elaborate process they went through in the movie greatly increased the chances he would make such a pick, but there was no guarantee. However, it was constructed with personal knowledge of the target. Even more strange was the fact that a string of some of his reasonable bets went bad (the missed extra point, the pick of the card, etc). Had they all not gone bad, it would have disrupted his faked desperation to the multi-million dollar bet.