Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant – Action With A Message [Review]

Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant is a tale of two halves. On one hand, you have your traditional ass-kicking, rah-rah, army story in Afghanistan. On the other side, you have a story that details the struggle that the Afghan people and particularly the interpreters, went through during and following our occupation of Afghanistan that ended in 2021.

Right off the bat, besides the title having his name jammed onto it, this is a Guy Ritchie movie through and through. It has his trademark style and tone, but it goes even deeper than that. He spreads out past the flashy action he’s known for into a territory that includes tackling social issues and societal issues involving people coming back from war.

The Covenant follows US Army Sergeant John Kinley (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Afghan interpreter Ahmed (Dar Salim). That partnership is tested right away when Ahmed goes against John’s orders on some intel. It ends up paying off, but John is fuming about Ahmed going around his command. After a mission to find Taliban weapons stashes goes wrong, Ahmed goes to extreme lengths to save Kinley’s life.

After saving John’s life, Ahmed and his family aren’t given the proper paperwork to come to America like was promised. John has to repay his debt by returning to Afghanistan to save them before the Taliban can find them first.

The movie really focuses on John and Ahmed’s relationship, but it also features Alexander Ludwig, Jonny Lee Miller, Emily Beecham, Rhys Yates, and a much too small role from Antony Starr.

Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare Meets Guy Ritchie

That tale of two halves leaves The Covenant feeling a bit bifurcated. The scenes with the action and shooting are fast-paced, energetic, and tense. You can feel the impact of every gunshot, and every explosion and the deaths have weight. It’s masterfully shot and very clearly took plenty of preparation to get right from a tactical and cinematic standpoint. The dialogue between the firefights and missions in this first section feels genuine.

Once The Covenant gets through that point, it’s past the rah-rah dialogue and military jargon. You finally get into the meat of the story. From the point that Ahmed and John are ambushed and have to cross hundreds of miles of Taliban territory to get back to their base, the film flips. It’s told from afar and from the point of view of John; who’s most likely hugely concussed and bleeding out from his wounds.

This section of the film is the most interesting portion because it hits this dreamy state with Ahmed performing superheroic feats of humanity. He carries, wheels, bargains, drives, and drags John to safety. It’s a titanic performance from Dar Salim as Ahmed to carry this portion of the film while Jake Gyllenhaal is down for the count. Salim is charismatic and heroic throughout; never burning over, giving up, or showing any weakness carrying John.

Some Of The Weaker Elements Of The Covenant

It’s maddening that in The Covenant that Antony Starr and his group of guns for hire don’t get nearly enough screen time. They kind of act as the overwatch for John while he returns back to Afghanistan, but then they’re sidelined until the end of the film. Also, some of the things they do aren’t explained very well. How do they get military authorization and heavy equipment? It would have been nice to get them a little more time to show off who they are and what they do.

That two-halves approach works well for the most part; but it does feel like the film drags a bit in the middle of it. The film loses a bit of momentum once John returns home. It takes time to explain how the bureaucratic process grinds to a halt. So that might be a way to have the audience feel how John feels, but it doesn’t work. In the end, John calls in a major favor with his commanding officer to get the necessary paperwork for Ahmed and his family.

Also, the villains of the film, the Taliban and their upper command aren’t really given any sort of development or motivation besides “we’re bad guys”.

There’s some absolutely stunning cinematography on display from Ed Wild. It was shot in Spain, but they do a good job of making it look like Afghanistan. There are sweeping shots at sundown, sunrise, and across the season when Ahmed is ferrying John through the territory. It’s not a very colorful movie, but when they do show anything other than the camo colors and the desert landscape, it really pops.

Through it all, The Covenant might look and feel like a balls-to-the-wall action movie from the trailer; but it ends up being much more than that. It goes through the struggle and violence that the people of Afghanistan face because of the US and now Taliban occupation. This tells the story of an unbreakable bond between men at war. It does have some truly pulse-pounding and breathtaking scenes, especially in the third act. The Covenant features excellent performances from Jake Gyllenhaal and Dar Salim that carry this film for its two-hour-plus runtime.

The Covenant releases in theaters on April 21st, 2023.

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