The movie is not based on a true story, but the script –– written by Ritchie, Ivan Atkinson and Marn Davies –– does channel the experiences of a lot of troops and citizens in Afghanistan (and there are images of real-life heroes over the end credits).
‘Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant’ follows US Army Sergeant John Kinley (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Afghan interpreter Ahmed (Dar Salim). Together with the likes of Charlie “Jizzy” Crow (Sean Sagar), Joshua JJ Jung (Jason Wong), Eduardo ‘Chow Chow’ Lopez (Christian Ochoa) and Tom ‘Tom Cat’ Hancock (Rhys Yates), the squad’s mission is to hunt down and tag Taliban explosives construction locations in Afghanistan so they can be destroyed.
After an ambush, Ahmed goes to Herculean lengths to save Kinley’s life, loading the injured soldier on to a cart and dragging him for days to the nearest US base.
Months after his return home to his wife Caroline (Emily Beecham), Kinley learns that Ahmed and his family were not given safe passage to America as promised and he must repay his debt by returning to the war zone to retrieve them before the Taliban hunts them down first.
Guy Ritchie has long since proved that he’s more than the man who made his career with knockabout crime capers featuring fast-talking Brits. He’s also been behind the likes of the ‘Sherlock Holmes’ movies (which, admittedly, were knockabout crime capers featuring fast-talking Robert Downey Jr. doing a British accent) and, for a real change of pace, Disney’s live action ‘Aladdin’.
But while he seems more comfortable in his criminal wheelhouse, with ‘The Covenant’ (which we assume added his name to avoid confusion with Renny Harlin’s 2006 supernatural movie), Ritchie aims for a more straightforwardly heroic character piece here. He’s certainly not lost his touch for creative action, he and his team making the battle scenes effective and dramatic, if not always complete shock and awe.
And in his cast, he’s recruited some winners. Gyllenhaal has been in the military mode before, with ‘Jarhead’ (and he’s also played his share of troubled law enforcement types) and here he brings a soulful, stern countenance to Kinley.
The banter between the troops early on also comes across as authentic –– this is a group far from their own families that has bonded into a unit of its own, the shared experiences of combat and chaos keeping them close. There are also some funny exchanges between Kinley and his superior (Jonny Lee Miller’s Colonel Vokes), keeping it real when it comes to the realities of modern warfare.
Salim, meanwhile, keeps Ahmed human, and not a man who needs to ingratiate himself with the troops, but soon does anyway because of his no-nonsense attitude and loyalty. While Kinley initially has his doubts about the man, he’s part of the team even before he goes above and beyond to save the Sergeant’s life.
Shooting in Alicante, Spain, the movie certainly looks authentic, though beyond Ahmed and one or two examples on his extended rescue mission, it doesn’t go all that far into portraying the native population in a well-rounded way.
( Source: https://www.moviefone.com/news/movie-review-guy-ritchies-the-covenant/ )
