Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves gave us some truly memorable heroes, from Chris Pine's charming bard Edgin to Michelle Rodriguez's strong barbarian Holga. But I have to give a special shoutout to Regé-Jean Page's paladin Xenk, who steals the show with extreme righteousness and killer combat skills.
Xenk is a legendary warrior known for helping the people of Faerûn. When our main group of adventurers first encounter him, he's just saved a baby tabaxi from the mouth of a giant fish — a literal "save the cat" moment in a nod to Blake Snyder's screenwriting book(opens in a new tab) of the same name.
Right from that moment, we know Xenk is a hero. Edgin and his ragtag band of thieves look like small potatoes by comparison: If the Honor Among Thieves characters found themselves in an actual Dungeons & Dragons game, Xenk is already several levels ahead of the others in terms of skill. And based on Edgin's initial resentment towards Xenk, he knows it too.
This contrast between Xenk and Edgin leads to some of the film's most comedic moments, including Edgin's distaste for Xenk's "symmetrical" sentences and Xenk's total inability to understand humor or sarcasm. (Xenk is absolutely the player at the table who takes everything too seriously.) And as much as I love Xenk and Edgin's dynamic, my favorite Xenk moment comes when the paladin parts ways with the rest of our crew.
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves doesn't rush Xenk's exit. Instead, it makes it a whole bit: Xenk strides down a beach away from Edgin, Holga, Simon (Justice Smith), and Doric (Sophia Lillis) in a perfectly straight line. The camera stays on him as he goes, lingering for several beats longer than necessary until you're giggling at the ridiculousness of it.
"[Xenk's walk] was us commenting on the trope of the weary hero walking into the sunset and pulling the rug out from the expectation of that trope," director John Francis Daley told Mashable in a Zoom interview with co-director Jonathan Goldstein.
"We had a lot of alt jokes there with Edgin saying, 'Where's he even going? I don't think there's anything down that way,'" added Goldstein, highlighting how Edgin comments on Xenk's behavior throughout the scene.
Edgin's bewildered comments especially pay off towards the very end of the short sequence. As Xenk makes a beeline for the sunset, he crosses paths with a large boulder. Edgin wonders loud whether Xenk will walk around the rock. Nope! Xenk steps right over it, barely even breaking his stride. It's one of the silliest moments from the film — and the film is full of silly moments — and Goldstein and Daley revealed that it was something Page came up with on the spot.
"That moment was one of the few things that we found on the day," said Daley. "We had Regé walking in a straight line away from the scene, and we decided to just keep the cameras rolling and see what he'd do."
"He would just go until we'd call 'cut,' so we were like, 'Don't call cut. Let's just see what happens,'" Goldstein said.
"We had no idea how Regé would handle [the rock]," Daley added. "And the fact that he hopped over it was so hilarious to us that we knew we had to include it."
That settles it: Add "improvisation" to Xenk's set of skills, along with swordfighting, saving baby cats, and all-around heroism.
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is now in theaters.
