Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant review: Jake Gyllenhaal can’t rescue this Afghan war drama
Guy Ritchie bids for respectability, but fails to offer any new insights into an unpopular war or those who fought it
Film Reviews Guy Ritchie
Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant might have its director’s name in the title, but it’s star Jake Gyllenhaal who evokes what the film is trying to be. It’s an action movie set during an unpopular war that becomes a survival story before finally morphing into a rescue-and-escape caper. Think of it as Gyllenhaal’s take on Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) or The Revenant (2015) while trying very hard to be his American Sniper (2014). All three movies delivered boffo box office and acclaim for their respective stars; Sylvester Stallone, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Bradley Cooper. It’s a tried and true Hollywood tradition to try and replicate what worked before, and to emulate successful stars’ careers, but it’s doubtful Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant will do much for Gyllenhaal’s career.
He plays John Kinley, an army sergeant leading a small group of soldiers in a quest to locate explosive landmines 17 years into America’s war in Afghanistan. The story starts with an ambush that kills one of Kinley’s soldiers and their Afghan interpreter. The replacement interpreter is quickly introduced as the savvy and resourceful Ahmed (Danish actor Dar Salim of TV’s Borgen). The relationship between Kinley and Ahmed then moves to the center of the film. Kinley’s interactions with the other soldiers in the battalion are full of wisecracking innuendos and immodest bravado, reminiscent of the dialogue in Ritchie’s other, far less serious movies. His relationship with Ahmed is different, molded in the classic cinematic milieu of bro friendship. They start as taciturn and begrudgingly trustful then gradually become a full-fledged brotherhood ready to sacrifice their life for each other.
Unfortunately both characters are sketched only in the broadest terms. Kinley is the everyman American soldier; righteous, brave, in command, and respected by his fellow soldiers. Ahmed is his everyman Afghan helper. Kinley’s reasons for enlisting are never explained and Ahmed—who doesn’t even get a last name—is only afforded the simplistic explanation of trying to save his family. While that might be a compelling reason, the character doesn’t get much interaction with said family. There’s nothing deeper than that, all of it rather impersonal.
The script, credited to Guy Ritchie and the team of Ivan Atkinson and Marn Davies, has no take whatsoever on the war itself. The scope of what is covered is very narrow, just a few soldiers at the beginning, then dwindling to just the two lead characters. The audience gets no insight on what any of them think about the war or its morality. They seem to be only concerned with the tasks at hand. Words like “traitor” are bandied about, with no nuance given to the complexity of the situation.
The part of the film that most feels like Ritchie’s other movies involves the mission. A group of men come together to do something. Instead of the usual spies or small-time criminals, it’s soldiers in Afghanistan. But the relationships and the attitudes are part and parcel of Ritchie’s other movies. Then Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant veers into a survival story as two men try to outmaneuver the Taliban in the mountains of Afghanistan. And finally we get the rescue and escape mission. Not one of these is compelling on its own and all feel like the bare minimum of what they could be in story and character. This film is even free of any clever action sequences, as if in trying to tell a serious story Ritchie forgot what makes his films special. Strangely devoid of any tension, the action is merely machine guns and explosives. There’s no finesse to how the scenes are shot and more damningly, when a complication is introduced it’s quickly resolved and onto the next one it goes.
Afghan interpreters were promised relocation and immigration status to the U.S. for their contributions to the war, an interesting historical nugget that could have provided the film with some narrative oomph. Instead, the bureaucratic process of procuring this visa quickly dissolves into a showcase of Gyllenhaal yelling into a phone and playing drunk, while the audience is never shown how Ahmed is dealing with the situation.
Throughout all this, Gyllenhaal is appropriately tightly wound. Yet the character does not afford him much complexity to work with. Salim fares better, adding a much needed gravitas and calm to the jittery proceedings. He has a natural command of the frame even when his character is saying nothing. Emily Beecham, as Kinley’s wife, is saddled with one of the worst written “supportive wives” roles in recent memory. In attempting to give the character something more to do, the screenwriters come up with two laughably written scenes. You see, this wife is also a successful businesswoman. So Beecham gets to tell Gyllenhaal not once but twice that she’s competent at running the business the Kinleys apparently own. Then she’s back to supporting him and looking concerned.
Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant offers marginal entertainment value. It’s a film that seems afraid to offer any ideas about its setting and characters beyond the minimum. Only Salim, in a performance of quiet strength, gives the audience something to latch onto. However, at face value, if one were to ignore character and story and only revel in the endless machine gun fire, maybe there’s a few minutes of something to watch.
Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant opens Friday, April 21, 2023
30 Comments
Guy Ritchie…huh. Go on, I guess…?Afghan war dramaOh no. NOOOOOOOOO, heh, no thank you. Slightly better than Michael Bay taking on, say, the Khmer Rouge, but only just.
I tried watching Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen on Netflix and got 5 minutes in and decided I was too high to deal with this movie’s bullshit so I watched Hardcore Henry instead. I’m sure people hated the first person gimmick but I thought it was a fun dumb action movie with a good Sharlto Copley performance. I guess what I’m saying is I really got no desire to see this and they should put Sharlto Copley in more movies.
Before watching it, I had heard that Hardcore Henry was dumb and induced nausea. After watching it, I recommended it to everybody as the best action stunt movie ever (pre-John Wick division).
and i imagine excluding anything from hong kong haha
Not one of these is compelling on its own and all feel like the bare minimum of what they could be in story and character.That sounds like The Gentlemen, where Ritchie decided to make 3 or 4 half-assed movies instead of one good movie.
i do not understand how and why guy ritchie keeps getting funding. for every success you can point to two bigger failures. this sounds like his second flop in two months!
I was once told by an industry semi-insider that his main attraction, rather boringly, is that he’s incredibly reliable: he’ll deliver his part of the job on time and in budget.
two of the four months in the first four months of the year, traditionally the flop season 😀
Didn’t Guy Ritchie just have a movie come out like last month?
That one had been on the shelf for a year.
wtf Jake Gyllenhaal, the dude used to have great taste in projects but now he’s doing Michael Bay and Guy Ritchie junk, and next up a Road House remake.
I bet filming a Bay or Richie film is more exciting than most projects, they tend to film on location and usually involve a fair amount of action. I can’t blame the dude for going that route. It’s not like he has anything to prove in the acting department.
meh…he was in Prince of Persia.
I think you need to hop onto his IMDB for a bit. He’s floated towards generic hyper-masculine shit like this just as often as his quirky and offbeat stuff.
What’s up with Guy Ritchie lately? His last few films haven’t felt very Guy Ritchie.They’ve been pretty Guy Poorlie.
I came here to say this. I used to love his films, but he’s been on a weird downhill run recently.
He seems to be suffering from the same thing as Tim Burton is that he found a schitick and then watered it down to get money so it became cheesy.
Mate, I say this from a position of love and somewhat tenuous respect…I wouldn’t open with that. But you’re right. They’ve become too…slick. Like all the corners rounded off.
Too late! It’s in my tight 5.
heard your 5’s kind of loose these days
How dare you, Sir!
He didn’t want to be accused of abandoning Ahmed like he did Taylor Swift.That’s plenty of motivation right there.
This looks and sounds much worse than a C-. Like, what about this story held any appeal to Guy Ritchie? What a weird choice.
Per the opinions in this review, what a shame the characters aren’t given more depth and that it’s subject is treated so… commercially? What happened there deserves a more committed narrative treatment.
These kinds of “i’m in it for my buddies” movies are just tacitly pro war. They do some hand-waving at the costs the grunts pay or the terrible higher-ups, but really this is a great-white-hope saves the Afghani he was imperiling in the first place story. I can’t fucking believe they didn’t even give “Ahmed” a last name! Seriously people, the bro excuses to find a way to have fun watching JayGyl gun down a bunch of non-white people are really thin this time. ftr Jarhead sucked also. Time for a new agent.
It’s quite possible “Ahmed” would be known by a single name. https://culturalatlas.sbs.com.au/afghan-culture/afghan-culture-naming
I am SO TIRED of war movies.
I’m gonna go off script a bit on this one but; was the Afghan war unpopular? Like, now, sure, because it just ended abysmally, but my recollection of the time was that most people broadly either supported it, or couldn’t care less. Now Iraq. That was an unpopular war.Am I misremembering?
Though the net approval was slightly favorable at the onset of Afghanistan it declined over time to become the least favorable. The opposition, however, was very ‘meh’.Iraq started very favorable, it was just that the opposition was very vocal.
“The audience gets no insight on what any of them think about the war or its morality. They seem to be only concerned with the tasks at hand. Words like “traitor” are bandied about, with no nuance given to the complexity of the situation.”
You mean like human beings might react under the circumstances?
“But how ever shall I understand the message the film is conveying if characters don’t tell me explicitly!”