My Thoughts on "Guy Ritchie's The Covenant 🇺🇸🇦🇫"
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I originally wrote this and posted it on DeviantART on Saturday April 29, 2023. This wasn't really a movie that I was planning on seeing at first. Like, after I saw Guy Ritchie's first movie this year, Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre, I saw the poster for this movie at the movie theater, I didn't really have any intention on seeing it even though it was also from Guy Ritchie. The only reason I did end up seeing it is because my grandma and I were sitting around one day, and we wanted to see a movie since we were kind of bored and had nothing else to do. So, I chose this movie because it was the only remotely interesting movie that I saw that we could both enjoy. So, my aunt bought us tickets for the Regal theater in Albuquerque, the one at Winrock with the IMAX theater, and see it. And we both liked it, we liked it a lot.
I actually put the movie on my Christmas list 🎄 because I wanted the Blu-Ray 💿. But, I never actually got it for Christmas 🎄 from anybody, so I have to go and buy it myself. Preferably from Best Buy before Best Buy stops selling physical media next year, in 2024. I'm still pretty upset about that, as are many physical media collectors. Speaking for me personally, Best Buy was my go-to place to buy Blu-Rays 💿, especially of movies and shows that I couldn't really find at Walmart or at Target. Plus, they had those special editions like those steelbook editions of these Blu-Ray releases 💿 with the special cover art. Those were sweet. It was also a good place to find Criterion releases besides Barnes & Noble. Like, I got the WALL•E Criterion Blu-Ray/4K Ultra HD release 💿 from Best Buy probably. I got it at as a Christmas gift 🎄 from my aunt and uncle, and I don't know where exactly they bought it, but I assume it was Best Buy since that was the most accessible place to get it.
So, it's just a shame that Best Buy is completely doing away with her physical media section, and are no longer going to be selling Blu-Rays or 4Ks 💿 going forward after 2024. I hope Best Buy reconsiders or reverses their decision, and decides to keep the Blu-Rays and 4Ks 💿 around, but I doubt it since this decision really didn't cause that big of an uproar to make the company reconsider and reverse its decision. It's really the hard core physical media collector community, and the film buffs that really got up and arms about Best Buy getting rid of physical media for movies.
So, now, after early-to-mid 2024, the only places where we will be able to buy Blu-Rays 💿 or 4Ks 💿 are Walmart, Target, FYE (kind of), Barnes & Noble, and of course Amazon, and other online retailers. But, that's okay because most physical media collectors have been buying their DVDs 📀, Blu-Rays 💿, and 4K Ultra HDs 💿 online anyway. Physical media isn't dying, but it is becoming a smaller and more niche market.
Anyway, back to Guy Ritchie's The Covenant. At first, I was perplexed because it didn't really look like a Guy Ritchie from looking at the poster. When you think of a Guy Ritchie, you probably think of slickly produced suave action comedy type of movie. That's what I usually think of. Even after watching it, the movie really didn't feel like a Guy Ritchie movie. I mean, it was like Aladdin (2019) or anything, where it was clearly a job for hire, and he had no real passion for it or creative control over it. It is clear that Guy Ritchie did have passion for the material, and wanted to tell this story, and be as respectful as he possibly could to the veterans of the War in Afghanistan 🇦🇫. It's just that the final product is quite different from his usual work. This ain't no Operation Fortune, or Man from U.N.C.L.E., or Snatch, or Sherlock Holmes and Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows.
In fact, I think he made Operation Fortune, and strategically released it two months before this movie, so that he could have the more typical stylish action comedy that people expect from him, and then could have time to work on and release this smaller passion project of his that he knew wouldn't have as wide of an appeal as Operation Fortune would. I say this in the review, but this movie does sort of have a limited appeal. It's mainly meant for an American or even British audience 🇺🇸🇬🇧 (since Guy Ritchie's British 🇬🇧, like unabashedly British 🇬🇧), since those were the two main countries that participated in the War in Afghanistan 🇦🇫 from 2001 to 2021. There were others, plenty others, but those were the two big ones, the US 🇺🇸 and the UK 🇬🇧. And it's specifically made for veterans of the war since the movie is primarily told from the perspective of a veteran.
It's about a guy who served in Afghanistan 🇦🇫 in the US Army 🇺🇸, and was saved by his Afghan interpreter 🇦🇫 after fleeing from the Taliban after a mission gone wrong, and when he returns home after his harrowing experience, he feels guilty about leaving his interpreter behind, and decides to go back and rescue him and his family before they're killed by the Taliban. But, I think this limited appeal or smaller scale works for this movie. It allows it to tell a more intimate story where you feel for the characters, and want to see them survive, and make it out okay. I was rooting for both characters, the Army guy played by Jake Gyllenhaal and the Afghan interpreter 🇦🇫 played by Dar Salim.
This movie is kind of interesting to think about now, two years after the American and NATO withdrawal 🇺🇸, and the Taliban's second takeover of Afghanistan 🇦🇫. The movie is set during the war itself years before the American and NATO withdrawal 🇺🇸 and the fall of Kabul. But, it definitely feels like a movie that's meant to be a bit of catharsis for Afghan war vets 🇦🇫 who feel jaded, who feel let down by their leaders, and feel dejected by their defeat in the war and their inability to win. Like, it shows one Afghan vet 🇦🇫 managing to get some sort of victory out of this long two decades long war, even if it is just a small one.
I don't know if Guy Ritchie made this movie before or after the fall of Kabul. If he filmed it before the fall of Kabul, then that was a huge coincidence and an unfortunate turn of events that changed the dynamic of this movie and made it something it wasn't originally. If he filmed it after, then it was a pretty strong and poignant response to a tragedy that helps provide catharsis for those who participated in the war, and feel despondent that they didn't get to win it on their terms, and feel guilty for abandoning the people of Afghanistan 🇦🇫, and leaving them at the mercy of an extremist organization like the Taliban.
There really aren't that many movies about the War in Afghanistan 🇦🇫. I mean, there were two this year, including one and the Gerard Butler led Kandahar, which I think was direct-to-DVD 📀 or direct-to-Blu-Ray release 💿. I don't remember that coming out in theaters, so I assume it was strictly a home media release. But, it's funny I mention that movie because Gerard Butler was in another movie in this year, months before Kandahar called Plane ✈️🇵🇭, which was more of a straight up action movie, a throwback to 90s action movies, unlike this movie or Kandahar which are war movies.
They have action, but also dramas, and are meant to be taken more seriously than a cheesy 90s action movie romp like Plane ✈️🇵🇭 was trying. I might consider watching Kandahar because I like Gerard Butler, and I'm curious to see if it's better or worse than this movie. So, Gerard Butler had two movies this year, just like Guy Ritchie, although Gerard Butler was just an actor and producer on his two films this year, whereas Guy Ritchie was the director on both of his films this year. But, that's nothing compared to Jason Statham, who was in four movies this year, including Operation Fortune, Fast X, Meg 2: The Trench 🦈, and The Expendables 4, oh I'm sorry, I meant, Expend4bles 🙄.
But anyway, 2023 was probably the year with the most amount of Afghan War movies 🇦🇫 because the War in Afghanistan 🇦🇫 is one of the least covered conflicts in film. Whenever a war movie focuses on the War on Terror, they usually just focus on the Iraq War 🇮🇶 since that was the more dynamic and incendiary war compared to the War in Afghanistan 🇦🇫. It had controversy surrounding it. People at the time, in the 2000s, were comparing the Iraq War 🇮🇶 to the Vietnam War 🇻🇳 since this was yet another controversial war that was started by dubious justifications. So, it makes sense that filmmakers would make more movies about Iraq 🇮🇶 than they did Afghanistan 🇦🇫. And this isn't just a thing in cinema either.
The news media also focused on the war in Iraq 🇮🇶 more than they did the War in Afghanistan 🇦🇫. Even after the Iraq War 🇮🇶 of 2003 to 2011 ended, the media still didn't really focus on Afghanistan 🇦🇫. The most amount of news coverage that Afghanistan 🇦🇫 ever got was the US and NATO withdrawal 🇺🇸 and the fall of Kabul back in 2021. And most of the coverage was to show how completely mishandled the withdrawal was, and how disastrous of an outcome it was for the Taliban to retake Kabul, and reestablish their theocratic regime, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. That's when people started comparing the War in Afghanistan 🇦🇫 to the Vietnam War 🇻🇳. Iraq 🇮🇶 used to be the "new Vietnam 🇻🇳," and now it was Afghanistan 🇦🇫 that was "the new Vietnam 🇻🇳."
But, after the 2021 withdrawal and fall of Kabul, the American news media 🇺🇸 stopped talking about Afghanistan 🇦🇫 altogether, other than to occasionally mention how things inside the country have deteriorated for any non-Taliban supporter, for any non-Islamist ☪️ or Salafist, especially for women ♀︎ who instantly had all of the rights they had gained over the past two decades under the American-backed government 🇺🇸 stripped away from them by the Taliban. The treatment of women ♀︎ inside the post-war Afghanistan 🇦🇫 has been labeled by some experts and journalists a "gender apartheid," similar to Iran 🇮🇷, but perhaps even worse than Iran 🇮🇷.
If the media doesn't talk about that, then they talk about how the withdrawal and the fall of Kabul was a huge foreign policy misstep for the Biden administration, and may or may not have emboldened Putin to invade Ukraine 🇺🇦. The US 🇺🇸 had just collectively moved on from the war that they spent two decades and trillions of dollars 💵 fighting, and had lost it in humiliating fashion. With that out of the way, let's get on with the review itself, and stay tuned for my 2023 New Year's Eve Recap, I talk more about the movie there.
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I just saw The Covenant 🇺🇸🇦🇫, the latest action-war movie from director, Guy Ritchie, and it was really good. While, his other movie released this year, back in March, Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre got most of the attention, and this'll probably also get overshadowed by Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, which comes out next week, this one deserves a look. It's kind of an underrated gem I would say. It deals with an often overlooked aspect of the War in Afghanistan 🇦🇫: interpreters, men ♂︎ who helped coalition forces (particularly American forces 🇺🇸) talk to local Afghan people 🇦🇫, or interrogate suspected Taliban militants.
The movie follows one interpreter named Ahmad (played by Dar Salim) who is assigned to a US Army unit 🇺🇸 led by a sergeant named John Kinley (played by Jake Gyllenhaal), after their last interpreter was killed by an IED (improvised explosive device). At first, Sgt. Kinley doesn't trust Ahmad and is sort of antagonistic towards him, especially because of his past as a drug dealer or drug smuggler (I don't exactly remember), and he expects him to betray him and his team at any moment.
But, when a raid on a Taliban bomb factory goes horribly wrong, and the majority of his team is killed by the Taliban, Sgt. Kinley is forced to rely on Ahmad to survive, as the two of them are on the run from the Taliban, and must get back to base before its too late. Especially when Kinley is hit on the head by a Taliban fighter with the butt of a rifle, and he's left incapacitated. While Ahmad does succeed in getting Kinley back to safety at the base, he's forced to go into hiding with his family, as he's at the top of the Taliban's kill list, due to becoming something of a folk hero in the countryside for carrying Kinley back to safety all by himself, and he and his family don't have special immigrant visas. Feeling eternally grateful and indebted to Ahmad for saving his life, and feeling guilty for leaving him behind, Kinley decides to go back to Afghanistan 🇦🇫 to rescue him and his family. He teams up with an American contractor 🇺🇸 to do so.
As you can probably tell, this movie takes place before the war ended, and before the Taliban took over, when American and other coalition forces 🇺🇸 were still in the country, and when the secular Afghan government 🇦🇫 was still in power. It takes place in 2018, and we know that because there's a title card at the very beginning that tells us it takes place in 2018, so toward the tail-end of the war. And there's a title card at the end that says that the Taliban took over Afghanistan 🇦🇫 in 2021, which was a news story that I paid very close attention when it happened. They were probably still making the movie when that happened, and had to add that text as an update. Or perhaps, this movie was made in response to the Taliban takeover.
That's completely possible, as this is a much smaller movie than Operation Fortune, and it could've easily been filmed and finished within a year, back in 2022. The movie isn't based on a true story or anything. It's completely fictional as far as I can tell, but it sort of plays out like a tribute to Afghan interpreters 🇦🇫 in general, as they were integral part of the coalition war effort. These guys ♂︎ literally had the thankless job of translating English into Pashtun and other Afghan languages 🇦🇫, and Pashtun and other Afghan languages 🇦🇫 into English for American troops 🇺🇸, along with the languages of the other coalition forces, a lot of which were apart of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization).
And while, the interpreter in this movie gets out with a happy ending, a lot of interpreters in real life weren't so lucky, as many of them were left behind in the US 🇺🇸's hasty and chaotic withdrawal from the country in 2021. Many of them are either in hiding, or have already been killed, because the Taliban consider them to be infidels and traitors to the Afghan nation 🇦🇫 because they supported the US 🇺🇸. So, this movie is dedicated to all of those interpreters, all of those ones who didn't make it out.
I wonder if this movie will have the same effect on Afghanistan War veterans 🇦🇫 that movies like Rambo: First Blood Part II 🩸 or Missing in Action, had on Vietnam War veterans 🇻🇳. Since the War in Afghanistan 🇦🇫 is another tragic and embarrassing loss for the US 🇺🇸, and is often compared to the Vietnam War 🇻🇳. I mean, this movie doesn't take place in the present day, post-Taliban takeover, like Rambo: First Blood Part II 🩸 and Missing in Action both took place post-communist takeover in Vietnam 🇻🇳. It takes place during a time when the war was still going-on, but I could potentially seeing it having that sort of effect on Afghanistan vets 🇦🇫. Having the chance to go back and fight the war the lost, and gain some sort of victory or catharsis from it.
BTW, it is kind of funny that I mention Rambo: First Blood Part II 🩸 since the third Rambo movie, Rambo III actually took place in Afghanistan 🇦🇫. Granted, that was the 80s, during the Soviet-Afghan War 🇦🇫, when the Soviet Union ☭ was at war in Afghanistan 🇦🇫 fighting against Islamist insurgents ☪️. And the US 🇺🇸 was supporting those Islamist groups ☪️, then called the Mujahideen, meaning that they were the good guys in Rambo III, and were infamously referred to as "freedom fighters" in a title card at the end of the movie. Something that didn't age as well as the filmmakers had probably hoped at the time, but also didn't age as poorly as a lot of other people have said.
Oh man, how times changed, the War in Afghanistan 🇦🇫 from 2001 to 2021 was basically a role reversal, where the US 🇺🇸 was the invading superpower fighting a counter-insurgency war against Islamist insurgents ☪️. Though, the Russians 🇷🇺 didn't support the Taliban at any point during the war, they supported the secular Afghan government 🇦🇫 that the US 🇺🇸 and its ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) allies helped set up funnily enough given the US 🇺🇸 and Russia 🇷🇺's hostile relationship now. And the Taliban are different from the Mujahideen that fought against the Soviets, though many Mujahideen commanders did end up joining the Taliban. Some Mujahideen fighters and commanders ended up fighting against the Taliban as well, as the ones that formed the Northern Alliance, which helped the US 🇺🇸 and NATO overthrow the Taliban in 2001, so, it's not really all that cut and dry.
It is amazing to me that Guy Ritchie was able to go from making a fun, over-the-top, light-hearted spy action-comedy to making a very serious, somber, and sometimes emotional action-war movie, and he was able to release both movies in the same year, three months apart. But, that's just a true testament to how good of a filmmaker he is. He has such a varied career with so many different movies of different genres and tones, it's not even funny. Very few directors have as much variety in their filmographies as he does. And I must say, Jake Gyllenhaal is really good at action, like just nailed it. It makes me wish that he did more action movies, rather than dramas all the time.
I mean, his career is sort of starting to go that direction now since he also did Ambulance 🚑 with Michael Bay, and of course played Mysterio in Spider-Man: Far From Home 🕷️🇬🇧, so maybe we will see him do more action roles in the future. He has the chops for it. Of course, he nailed the dramatic scenes in this movie as well, which is to be expected because he's a skilled actor and he spent a huge chunk of his career doing more serious dramatic roles. I mean, it was enough to bring my grandma to tears 😢, so that's gotta to count for something.
Dar Salim was really good in this movie as well. He managed to give Ahmad a lot of pathos, and he made him really badass who can take Talibs out, or spot an ambush, or sniff out traitors from a mile away. You just root for the guy ♂︎, and you want him and his family to get to safety. I really hope that he's in more stuff after this because he deserves it.
This is definitely a movie that you should see in theaters if you have the chance because it is worth every penny, every expensive penny. My grandma spent $30+ 💵 buying the popcorn 🍿 and drinks 🥤 😧. Going to the movies is definitely an activity you go to if you're broke, unless you can borrow money 💵 from people you know and love to help take some of the load off like we do.
If you're interested in learning more about the Afghanistan War 🇦🇫, and why the US 🇺🇸 and ISAF failed, I would suggest checking out the three-part documentary series put out by PBS Frontline, America and the Taliban 🇺🇸, which coincidentally came out the same month this movie came out. Watching all three-parts of that series before watching this, gave me pretty insight and appreciation for what happens on screen.
All three-parts are on YouTube, on the official PBS Frontline channel, though a word of warning ⛔️, the first and second part are both age restricted, and you to confirm if you want to watch the second part or not. Just a head's up for you if you want to watch those. Watching this movie made me want to seek out that Afghanistan War movie 🇦🇫 about the Gurkha that I found awhile back. I forgot the name of it, but it looked pretty good, even if it was direct-to-video 📀💿 and not a theatrical release.
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Update:
That movie I was talking about the end is called 400 Bullets, I finally remembered the title. It's a British movie 🇬🇧, and it shows the War in Afghanistan 🇦🇫 from the point-of-the-view of the British 🇬🇧 since the Gurkha units are units of the British army 🇬🇧, despite the Gurkhas themselves being from Nepal 🇳🇵. I'm definitely checking this movie out after this.
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Here's the link to three part documentary by PBS Frontline talking about the Taliban and the United States 🇺🇸's handling of them during the War in Afghanistan 🇦🇫, America and the Taliban 🇺🇸:
Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aF_-J5n1RU
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