Once upon a time, a former harpist named Edgin Darvis (Chris Pine) teamed up with the barbarian Holga Kilgore (Michelle Rodriguez), the hapless sorcerer Simon Omar (Justice Smith), and the con artist Forge Fitzwilliam (Hugh Grant) to make a living through theft. The team wasn’t the most balanced, but things were going great, no one was starving, and the accomplices were living it up. But that was until they decided to steal a resurrection tablet to bring Darvis’s deceased wife back to life. The heist didn’t go as planned. As a result, Edgin and Holga were sent to hard labor, Omar was forced to wander the area and engage in petty pickpocketing, while Fitzwilliam, with the tablet and all the loot, became the lord of Neverwinter. Years later, Darvis and Kilgore escaped from imprisonment, and that’s when it was time for Fitzwilliam to pay his debts. However, he was in no hurry to settle accounts and even sentenced his former companions to death, but they fled and began preparing for their next, not-so-friendly visit to the traitor’s chambers.
Chris Pine as Edgin in a still from “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves”
“Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” is based on Dungeons & Dragons, the very tabletop game that the characters in “Stranger Things” played. Playing often requires a pen and a notebook, and the instructions are as voluminous as all those notebooks combined, so it’s clearly not an activity for the faint of heart. “Honor Among Thieves” isn’t the first attempt to bring the game’s lore to the screen; the previous three—in 2000, 2005, and 2012—were varying degrees of disastrous. This makes the 2023 film all the more surprising—captivating from the very first minutes, dynamic, fun, and never sagging throughout its more than two-hour runtime.
The Allure of a Fantasy World
Justice Smith as Simon in a still from “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves”
The fantasy Middle Ages are enchanting from the very first scenes: there are dwarves, and the most incredible mixes of animals (a bear-owl alone is worth it), and sorcerers and wizards, who are not the same thing—it’s impossible to look away. Hugh Grant can be noted as a separate species of fantastic creatures, as if he remained in the image of Fletcher from “The Gentlemen” or Greg Simmonds from “Operation Fortune.” Chris Pine is not far behind, perhaps not the most charismatic actor of his generation (Tom Hardy and Jake Gyllenhaal are somewhere nearby, for example), but here he simply blossoms. The remaining screen partners are more likely playing types, but for a comedic fantasy based on a tabletop game, two dedicated actors are more than enough.
Sophia Lillis as Doric in a still from “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves”
A Fresh Take on a Beloved Game
The directorial duo of Jonathan M. Goldstein and John Francis Daley doesn’t suffocate the audience with rules or tedious backstories (the most impressive flashback is shown before the credits and lasts exactly five minutes—perfect), but immediately immerses the viewer in a series of chases and battles. The characters always have a clearly defined goal, which they advance towards through a mess of diverse fairytale creatures. In addition, the authors have an excellent sense of humor: one could go crazy just from the dwarven householder played by Bradley Cooper, but there are plenty of such episodes scattered throughout the film, and it seems impossible to get bored with such a density of fun and action.
Despite the fact that the project has been in development since 2013, changed several potential directors and lead actors, and the script was repeatedly rewritten, the result is a complete work, more than friendly to both the unprepared viewer and, judging by the reviews, to fans of the game. The film was ready in the first half of 2021, but the release was postponed to March-April 2023, first due to the pandemic, and then for commercial reasons. Since February 2022, a series from Paramount+ has been in development, with Rawson Marshall Thurber, the director of “Red Notice” and several other films with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, announced as the showrunner. Not the most encouraging candidate, however, few expected anything outstanding from “Honor Among Thieves” either, but the result is a film that is not inferior in audience potential to, say, “Glass Onion.” In more favorable circumstances, it would be shown on TNT or STS every few months, and it would gradually etch itself into memory as a modern classic of family adventure cinema. Daley and Goldstein are still diplomatically avoiding questions about a full-length sequel, but if the studio finds the box office satisfactory, then there is no doubt that we will see a continuation in a few years.