Psycho's Movie Reviews #339: The Thief Lord (2006)

The Thief Lord is a 2006 family drama film directed by Richard Claus. It is a joint production of Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., Future Films Limited, Comet Film, and Thema Production. The film is distributed by Warner Bros. The DVD was released on 14 March 2006 and the one-disc edition includes a theatrical trailer that ran in theatres in Europe and Mosca's cartoon from the film by itself.

It was nominated for the 2006 World Soundtrack Awards, with Original Music by Nigel Clarke and Michael Csányi-Wills. The screenplay was written by Richard Claus and Daniel Musgrave, based on the 2000 novel of the same title, by German author Cornelia Funke.

The film follows two recently orphaned brothers, Bo (Jasper Harris) and Prosper (Aaron Johnson), dumped in the care of a cruel aunt and uncle, who escape their impending separation by running off to Venice. Hiding in the canals and alleyways of the city, the boys are befriended by a gang of young urchins and their enigmatic masked leader, the Thief Lord (Rollo Weeks). From their home base of an old cinema theatre, the children steal from the rich to support themselves and soon capture the interest of a bumbling detective. However, a greater threat to the children is something from a forgotten past: a beautiful magical treasure that can change the age of anyone who rides it.

Plot

When Prosper and Boniface's parents die, their aunt Esther plans to adopt five-year-old Bo (Jasper Harris) and send 12-year-old Prosper (Aaron Johnson) away to boarding school. But before she can separate the two, Prosper takes Bo to Venice, the magical city about which their mother had often told them stories.

In Venice, the boys live on the streets, and Prosper's money quickly runs out. When Bo becomes ill, Prosper tries to steal cough medicine from a pharmacy and narrowly escapes being caught. They use up the last of their food, but are rescued by the Thief Lord (Rollo Weeks), a mask-wearing teenager named Scipio. The Thief Lord invites the boys to come to his hideout, an abandoned cinema called the Stella which is also home to three orphaned children Scipio has rescued: Hornet (Alice Connor), Riccio (George MacKay) and Mosca (Lathaniel Dyer). They steal from stores and Venice's wealthy tourists, but the majority of their money comes from Scipio, who goes on mysterious raids and always brings back treasures. Unfortunately, Barbarossa – the sleazy antique dealer to whom the children have sell their stolen goods – always cheats them. Bo brags that Prosper "is great at selling things", so Prosper is sent and ends up getting Barbarossa to quintuple his first price. Barbarossa tells Riccio and Prosper of a client who needs something stolen and will pay big money for it.

Meanwhile, the boys' aunt and uncle, Esther and Max Hartlieb (Carole Boyd and Bob Goody), have travelled to Venice to find their nephews and hired Victor Getz (Jim Carter) to help. The inspector stumbles across the boys in front of a pastry shop and chases them when they run away. He is distracted by a friend, Ida Spavento (Caroline Goodall), however, and loses them.

Back at the Stella, the children celebrate Prosper's success. Riccio tells Scipio about Barbarossa's customer and he decides to take the job. Scipio goes to see the client, a mysterious man known as the Conte (Geoffrey Hutchings), but only lets Prosper and Mosca meet him in person. The Conte asks them to steal a wooden wing, a fragment of the long-lost merry-go-round of the Merciful Sisters, for which he would pay fifty thousand euros.

While Scipio, Prosper and Mosca are dealing with the Conte, Bo, Hornet and Riccio wait outside. Bo is approached by Getz, who befriends him. Bo accidentally lets slip that he lives in an abandoned cinema. Prosper and the others return and chase him off. Getz continues to follow them, however, so Scipio distracts him while the others escape, at the cost of letting him see his face.

Scipio asks the gang to help stake out the mansion where the wing is kept while he goes away for a few days. Meanwhile, Getz finds his way to the house of Dottore Massimo (Robert Bathurst), owner of the Stella. He discovers that Scipio is not a poor orphan at all, but the rich Massimo's son. Massimo leaves Getz alone with Scipio, who makes a break for it and goes back to the Stella.

Scipio urges his gang to leave but is unable to explain himself fully without revealing his true identity. Instead, the gang devises a plan to catch Getz; it works and he is soon tied up. When Scipio doesn't show up for the stakeout the next day, the gang is confused. Getz (whom Mosca has released to help fix the projector) tells them what he knows. Not believing him, the gang visits Massimo's mansion. They find out that Scipio has lied to them about being an orphan and that all his 'loot' is from this house. It is Riccio who is the most upset, feeling betrayed.

On their return to the Stella they find Getz gone, although he has given them his 'word of honour' not to reveal their location, so long as he doesn't hear of any break-ins. He has fixed the projector, and they enjoy a short film Mosca has been working on for a long time. Even though their morale is low after discovering Scipio's betrayal, they decide to honour their bargain with the Conte.

Getz tells Prosper and Bo's aunt and uncle that the boys have left Venice for Corfu, but they don't believe him and fire him. When the gang go to steal the wooden wing, they encounter Scipio but refuse to work with him. While looking around, they accidentally wake the owner of the house: Ida. After a confrontation, Ida agrees to let them take the wing so long as she comes with them. She takes them to the convent of the Merciful Sisters, where they learn the mystical secret of the merry-go-round: children who ride it become adults, and adults become children.

Scipio takes them all on a boat to meet the Conte. The transaction goes off without a hitch. Barbarossa (who had been unable to get information out of Prosper, Hornet, and Riccio) leads police to the Stella, where they take Hornet and Bo, who had remained behind during the exchange, and close down the Stella. Prosper and the others return to find Hornet and Bo gone; thinking it was Getz who sold them out, they go to confront him. Getz insists he is on their side, then tells them that the money the Conte gave them is fake. With the phone on speaker, he calls Aunt Esther and learns that Bo is with her and Hornet with the police. Ida and Getz are able to get Hornet, whose real name is Catarina, from the Merciful Sisters, with whom the police have left her, and Ida allows the gang to stay at her place. That night, Scipio sneaks out of his father's mansion and finds and wakes Prosper. He persuades him to come with him to the Conte's secret island in order to ride the merry-go-round to become an adult.

Bo sneaks out of the hotel they are staying in and returns to the Stella. Getz, alerted by a phone call from Aunt Esther, finds Bo and brings him back to Ida's house. Meanwhile, the Conte (whose real name is Renzo) and his sister the Contessa are now children (having ridden the merry-go-round), around the same as Riccio and the others. The Conte offers a ride on the merry-go-round as payment in lieu of money. Only Scipio takes the offer, but he jumps off after being warned by Prosper and the Conte that he risks becoming an old man. When Barbarossa appears, Scipio encourages him to use the ride, which turns him into a young child. The merry-go-round breaks as his ride ends.

On their return, Prosper is reunited with Bo. The adult Scipio appoints himself Getz's new partner in the detective business, to which the man does not object. After drinking himself to sleep, Barbarossa is left alone as the children reunite at Ida's. The adults step outside. The aunt and uncle, who had followed Getz, seize the opportunity to enter the house and try to snatch Bo. Riccio, Prosper, and Mosca fend off the two adults while Hornet keeps Bo with her, but the children lose the upper hand until Scipio returns and forces the uncle and aunt out at gunpoint.

Riccio and Mosca take the money they deserve from Barbarossa's safe and split it amongst the gang. Scipio uses his share to buy the boys a boat and establishes bank accounts for the others. In the final scene, Victor, Ida, Prosper, Hornet and Bo are on Scipio's old boat. Driving the boat, Ida comments that they would make a great family. They all happily decide to stay together.

Release/Reception/Box Office

The film has a 40% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Will Wade of Common Sense Media awarded the film four stars out of five. Neil Smith of the BBC awarded the film two stars out of five. Jo Berry of Empire awarded it two stars. Damon Smith of the Bournemouth Daily Echo awarded the film three stars. Sloan Freer of Radio Times awarded the film two stars out of five.

Box office $5,141,916

My Review

'The Thief Lord' is an enchanting little film that will keep people of all ages occupied since it's executed in a manner that isn't too childish or sugary. Based on fantasy novel by Cornelia Funke, the film centres on fourteen-year-old Prosper and six-year-old Bo, orphaned brothers who face being split up by their cruel aunt and uncle who intend to dump the elder boy in a children's home while they adopt the younger child. The boys flee to Venice, a city their mother told them was magical, where they are befriended by the mysterious Thief Lord and his band of street waifs. Stealing to provide for themselves, the children's lives are about to take another extraordinary turn as the Thief Lord's secret is unravelled and they discover why Venice truly is a place veiled of magic.

The child cast in this film all give decent performances and manage to carry the film well, since it is very much a film that focuses on their characters. Rollo Weeks' Scipio is portrayed in a manner that shows him to be a less flashy, more troubled hero than Harry Potter of the films (an entirely different character to the Harry of the books). Aaron Johnson is perfect as Prosper, a young teenager caught between enjoying his own childhood and providing a parental figure to his brother while wee Jasper Harris was utterly adorable as Bo, proving that very young actors can still be talented. Their young co-stars of George MacKay, Lathaniel Dyer and Alice Connor are equally as effective in their roles. And the young cast are well-supported by their adult co-stars, particularly Jim Carter as the clumsy Victor and Alexei Sayle as the slimy Barbarossa.

As an adaptation, 'The Thief Lord' is quite loyal to the books with the characters and the main plot remaining largely unchanged. The story is depicted in a manner that is involving and will endear the audience to the young characters and the musical score fitted the mood of the film perfectly. However, there were a couple of flaws, such as the scenes towards the end with the new 'children' (I don't want to elaborate too much in deference to those who haven't seen the film) were a bit too slapstick and didn't suit the rest of the film while the new version of Scipio should probably have been played by someone else since it just looked like Rollo Weeks with a bit of make-up on. And perhaps it should have been established where Proper and Bo lived previously so the audience aren't left wondering why the citizens of Venice all speak with English accents.

It was really fascinating to see something fresh and different from typical and often annoying Hollywood family stuff. For young ones Thief Lord is an enjoyable family adventure with talented young cast against the background of one of the most beautiful cities in the whole world, Venice. For grown-ups besides that it's a story of bitter loneliness and sometimes misunderstanding which unite most of the characters. Two brothers, fifteen years old Prosper and much younger Bo, after death of their parents are separated. The younger goes to the old childless relatives and Prosper has been sent to an orphanage. But brothers can't live without each other and for six years old Bo Prosper is the only person who cares about him and loves him so much. Desperate, they run away. They have nowhere to go in the whole world and they are heading to Venice, the city that their mother loved so much. But the city is not welcome to runaways with no money and only unexpected help of a mysterious boy, who called himself Thief Lord and saves them from more troubles. Bo and Prosper join him and his team of orphans who find a refuge in a deserted movie theatre. Soon our heroes learn that ancient city is full of surprises and what's is more that some strange magical things can happen there. They become involved into rather unexpected events and lives of different characters collide in Venice. We meet a lonely wife and husband, who also heading to Venice, trying to find a runaway child, who was merely a way to suppress their own loneliness, a lonely detective, who was hired to find Bo and some other characters. However, finally for many of our heroes resolution salvation of their personal problems will come in a rather unexpected way for each other.

But the loneliest and most suffering from that is mysterious Thief Lord himself who is trying to keep his secrets inside of him. This key character is playing by Rollo Weeks, who looks very good in his rather complicated part. Both Aaron Johnson (Prosper) and Jasper Harris also left very positive impression from their acting, self-reliance and naturalness. Despite rather short running time of the movie the development of most main characters is not bad. We know enough about them to feel sympathy or antipathy to them and we are not indifferent to them, which is very important for such a story. The acting among adult cast was also not bad with most memorable and likable performance from Jim Carter as Victor.

The beginning the movie is fast paced and probably a little too short but mostly it's exciting well-filmed film with interesting and original story. The soundtrack one it's own looked very good and it's a very good addition to visual part even if sometimes the music is abstracted from what we saw on screen. And let me to say that visuals for such low-budgeted production were also not too bad. If you are looking for a good non-American family adventure film on English language as an alternative for Hollywood production featuring talented cast, probably you would be unable to find better choice than Thief Lord. Also it's worth to notice that the movie mostly successfully avoids typical and clichéd for American family films crude humor and language.

That said, I found 'The Thief Lord' a charming film that should appeal to all ages of the family. It's a shame it's so underrated and received little acknowledgement in the UK since surely we should be supporting our talented home-grown young actors and be eager to show the world that British child acting doesn't begin and end with the Harry Potter cast. 8.6/10