Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant: Film Review
When you think of Guy Ritchie, you think of ensemble crime comedies filled with Cockney geezers. His new war movie, Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant, proves he’s capable of so much more.
The movie is set in March 2018 during the War in Afghanistan. Jake Gyllenhaal plays U.S. Army Special Forces Sergeant John Kinley, who is in charge of a unit tasked with finding IED (improvised explosive device) factories. During a raid of a potential manufacturer, Kinley’s team are ambushed by the Taliban. He and his interpreter Ahmed (Dar Salim) end up on the run, trying to get back to Bagram Air Base on foot with the Taliban on their tail.
Gyllenhaal may be the big movie star here but Salim is the heart of the film. Ahmed is an absolute hero who goes above and beyond the call of duty to help the Americans and rescue a man from a country at war with his own. Salim, who is superb in the role, has an equal amount of screentime as Gyllenhaal (if not slightly more) and Ahmed has just as much backstory and character depth. He is not the stereotypical Afghan character we often see in Hollywood movies – he is a whole person and an intelligent, hardworking and valuable member of the team.
The story sheds light on an aspect of the War in Afghanistan that I never considered before – how local interpreters have been treated for helping the Americans, particularly after the U.S. fully withdrew from the country in 2021. They were supposed to be protected in exchange for their service but that was often not the case. In The Covenant, Kinley pays his debt to Ahmed by fighting for him to be relocated to America.
The film has a deeply satisfying dramatic arc and a bunch of gripping action sequences, with the initial ambush and final showdown being particular standouts. Gyllenhaal has starred in war films before and you can see why he signed up for another. This story of two vastly different men being bonded forever by a life-changing event is brilliantly done.
On Prime Video from Friday 2nd June