Master Sergeant John Kinley (Jake Gyllenhaal) and his squad are completing routine searches of vehicles at a checkpoint in Afghanistan when an Improvised Explosive Device claims the life of his interpreter. When asked to choose a replacement he selects Ahmed Abdullah (Dar Salim) who turns out to be a huge asset to the team. 

Ahmed earns the respect and trust of Kinley by later saving his team from an ambush and by virtue of the fact that Kinley discovers Ahmed’s son was murdered by the Taliban. Later in another disastrous mission Ahmed will save Kinley’s life before being abandoned by the U.S. Military and going into hiding. This forces Kinley’s hand and he piles all of his resources into rescuing Ahmed and his family. 

Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant (the films full original title) is a peculiar film in the increasingly erratic output of its writer/director. Ritchie has arguably never lived up to his debut (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) and sophomore (Snatch) films. And has had successes with his Sherlock films and abject failures with the likes of Swept Away and Revolver. In recent times he has been a director for hire with Disney’s live action Aladdin (2019), had a cult success with The Gentlemen and followed that up with three direct to streaming failures; Wrath Of Man, Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre and this. Of those three this is probably the best but it’s not the selling point that you might think that it is given the overall quality. 

Let’s start with the good. Jake Gyllenhaal is suitably intense, thoroughly believable as an elite soldier and elevates the material. Although frankly he should be picking better scripts. Whilst Dar Salim is probably the best part of the film and carries the middle section of the story. Otherwise the action sequences and production values are very solid and enjoyable to watch. 

The issue for me is just how jarringly weird the premise of this movie is and how much of a cookie cutter action movie it feels. This is not a true story. None of these characters are based on anyone real and none of these events happened. And yet the film is presented in a rather “holier than thou” saviour story. Kinley will go to any length to save the man who saved him. And the film even stoops to the levels of providing a definition of the word covenant at the end along with lots of photographs of real life soldiers and their translators. And yet it explains that the U.S. military abandoned thousands of translators with over three hundred being murdered along with their families by the Taliban and many more still in hiding to this day. Why is this a heroic “not true” story of a soldier’s bond with his translator with the tragedy of what happened to translators in the Afghanistan war explained in a bit of text at the end? It feels incredibly crass to me. 

Ignoring that moral conundrum the film is a very uninspiring “paint by numbers” action movie with brothers in arms who will do anything for each other. Act One – throw people together after adversity. They clash and then slowly build a respect for each other through events that prove their mettle. Act Two – it all goes horribly wrong and one puts his life at risk for the other. Act Three – the saved becomes the saviour and sacrifices it all to return the favour. 

Another misfire in a string of them for Ritchie. Let’s hope he can get his mojo back soon.