Honour among thieves is the latest attempt to bring the popular role playing game to the silver screen; but this time it seems that Hasbro have finally managed to pull it off and create a movie which is actually a Dungeons and Dragons film. The early noughties efforts may have had the excellently overacted performance of Jeremy Irons and some decent special effects for the time but they were a DnD wrapper on a generic fantasy film. Honour among thieves is very very different.
This was actually the first film I had been to see since JoJo Rabbit released and I went into it with very low expectations. I have to say though that these were swiftly exceeded by an enjoyable cinematic romp which, although flawed, captures the spirit of Dungeons and Dragons perfectly.
The fim centres around the bard Edgin (Chris Pine), a lapsed Harper who is imprisoned for breaking into a Harper stronghold at the paid request of a wizard Sofina. Edgin has a personal goal in doing this as he seeks a tablet to bring his murdered wife back to life but the plan goes south quickly and he is imprisoned with his colleague Holga. Breaking out, needlessly of course, he finds that another member of his old team, Forge, is now lord of Neverwinter and travels there to find the latter is still aligned with Sofina and has also turned Edgin’s daughter against him. Another escape and Edgin and Holga resolve to rescue Edgin’s daughter and bring Forge down. To this end they reunite with Simon, a mage with a confidence problem and Doric, a tiefling Druid with trust issues. The four of them embark on the quest and also stop Sofina who is revealed to be a red witch of Thay.
I will deal with the bad first as, to be honest there is little that is severely wrong with this film. I would say that the exposition is pretty much non-existent and the narrative hops around the map without anything to really say where things are taking place. There is nothing as simple as an indiana jones style map movement scene so I did feel rather unconnected to the narrative. Time and distance all mean nothing here and whilst this does not spoil the film; it is something which could have been better handled.
In a similar vein the character growth is pretty slim if not non-existent. Pine is solid as Edgin but the character itself is so memorable that when I came out of the showing I had forgotten his name and had to look it up in order to write my notes. This is not a fault of Pine or his performance; it is the character which is paper thin. There are plenty of ideas but just not really carried forward. Much the same can be said for Holga who does not get much growth or backstory explained. Simon and Doric get a little and benefit from it but I think the film could have been made stronger with a bit more character development. I do have to say though that Hugh Grant delivers a wonderfully slimy performance as Forge which absolutely lands and is worthy of special attention.
The music that scores the film is complementary to the plot but it is again forgettable. Despite listening to the soundtrack a few times since seeing the film released I cannot remember a single track or part of one. It is not bad music but it neither enhances nor diminishes the flm; it simply there.
With the bad out of the way what about the good?
Well first is the plot. Yes it is so thin you could read a character sheet through it and the power of friendship does a lot of heavy lifting here; but films like this are not about nuanced story. They are about fun and excitement and this film delivers a plot which feels very much like a DnD one shot adventure. The main focus is rescuing Edgin’s daughter and bringing Forge down with the Sofina storyline being a bolt on side effect. I could totally see a DnD campaign or one shot being like this because it is very much what DnD is. This is where the older films fell down as they went for world ending calamity rather than a character driven ‘small’ approach that has been used here.
The spirit of DnD is alive and well in this movie. Plans are stupidly over the top and are exactly what a group of players would come up with. The reverse heist for example is something you could see a group of players come up with much to the despair of the DM. This again is a different approach to how the older films approached it and it is a wink to the audience when it happens. When these plans fail you could imagine the smirk on the DM’s face as he explains things to the party of players and I really like that the over engineered plans often fail.
The use of the main character being a bard and a major character being a druid is an inspired decision. The use of a bard forces the writing to move from a combat focused narrative to a more character driven one. Edgin is not really a fighter and aside from trying to brain people with his lute he is a supporter, a planner and this is a refreshing change from the hero being the centre of the action. Likewise having a druid in makes a change from the normal elvish ranger, dwarven fighter etc. Yes Doric is an exaggeration of a druid class but the rule of cool works well here and if it inspires a few people to play a druid or take up DnD then this is only a good thing.
There are enough easter eggs and lore tips for hardcore fans without the movie bogging down or it becoming a bar for none players to pass. The mimic chest, the underdark and the nod to the 80s cartoon series are just some of the eggs but they are handled well and placed in sections of the film where they work. There is no sense they are added just for the sake of adding them which is always a risk when adding these kind of things in. The writers also resisted the temptation of adding in Drizzt which is to be commended. This would have been an easy points win but also would have been a distraction with fans wanting to see Drizzt rather than the rest of the film. A sequel could probably safely add him in but I think the omission was a wise one.
Honour Among Thieves is a refreshing new attempt to bring DnD to the screen and I really enjoyed it. There is plenty of appeal here for people who like the setting but don’t or can’t actually play the game, but it contains enough for players of the game to recognise it for what it is. Yes there are flaws and issues, films like this always are flawed; but for the first time I can say that I watched a DnD film which captured the spirit of the game along with enough of the loe to also cover most of the letter of it.
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