In the aftermath of World War II in Russia, the widowed Katya (Ekaterina Rednikova), whose husband has been killed in battle, believes her troubles are over when she meets the handsome, cocky soldier Tolyan (Vladimir Mashkov) during a train ride. Her six-year-old son, Sanya (Misha Philipchuk), is jealous and suspicious, but a feverish Katya succumbs to romance. The three of them move into an already crowded collective apartment, and soon Tolyan's real nature of is revealed: he's the thief of the film's title, who steals pitilessly from those who take him in. He's also an exponent of tough love, forcing meek little Sanya to punch out at the students at school who abuse him.

Tolyan is a bad guy, but he's also alluring in his meanness, just like Joseph Stalin, whose face he has tattoo'd on his body. Pavel Chukrai's film is a political allegory of a sort, and there are also overt Hamlet allusions: the boy's ghostly father appears dreamlike and asks for his death to be avenged. So Tolyan is not only a Stalin stand-in but also Hamlet's fratricidal and usurping uncle Claudius. That's too much symbolism for what is essentially a modest, well-told melodrama. The Thief's chief attraction (and probably the reason it got American distribution) is Philipchuk's winning, blue-eyed little boy. At the Kendall Square.