FilmSnobReviews

Title: The Covenant
MPA Rating: R
Director: Guy Ritchie
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Dar Salim, Sean Sagar
Runtime: 2 hrs 3 mins

What It Is: Master Sergeant John Kinley (Gyllenhaal) has taken on a new interpreter for his squadron. This new interpreter is the rather ornery Ahmed (Salim). When the squadron is ambushed everyone outside of John and Ahmed are dead, John is seriously injured and Ahmed simply REFUSES to leave John behind. he carries him 100 clicks across Taliban turf. This displeases the terrorist organizations local leader. Now Ahmed is in all-out survival mode. When John is recovered by the U.S. military Ahmed is left for dead and in hiding. Now John is fighting to get Ahmed the visas he was promised for saving his life.

What We Think: There’s nothing too new about the narrative of this film and Gyllenhaal gives a great performance. Guy Ritchie is just sort of stuck in this cycle of making the same exact stuff just tossed one way or another. This is military Wrath of Man. Everything more or less tends to evolve into a standard action movie complete with giant gun fight where everyone has terrible aim. Dar Salim is so excellent. Sadly outside of the two lead performances there isn’t anything worth repeating here.

Our Grade: C+, It’s very standard military action hoo-rah BS. Jake Gyllenhaal is always so damned good coupling him with Dar Salim, who’s also an incredibly talented actor and you get a dynamic duo. It looks like every other cut and paste military film so it is nothing special in that aspect. It’s a touching story, one of brotherhood and what it means to fight side by side with another soldier. That feeling of brotherhood that can only come from the fires of battle. Guy Ritchie my guy…you gotta do better I know you can.