The Dusty Trail
Guy Ritchie’s not really a war movie guy – Madonna’s ‘Swept Away’ doesn’t count – but ‘The Covenant’ proves he might want to do more of them.
The Covenant
Director: Guy Ritchie • Writers: Guy Ritchie, Ivan Atkinson, Marn Davies
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Dar Salim, Jonny Lee Miller, Alexander Ludwig, Emily Beecham, Antony Starr, Fariba Sheikhan, Damon Zolfaghari
USA • 2hrs 3mins
Opens Hong Kong May 25 • IIB
Grade: B
The Covenant, occasionally Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant thanks to a dozen IMDb hits for that title, is what I like to call a Beardy Movie. Beardy Movies take place in the Middle East or north Africa, you know. Someplace vaguely dangerous for white people, and follow a bunch of soldiers or mercenary types on a (sometimes) covert operation to rescue other white people and/or American Citizens from behind “enemy” lines. Occasionally they must save themselves. Please refer to exhibits A through Z: 13 Hours, 12 Strong, Lone Survivor, Extraction, Zero Dark Thirty (an assassination, but the Beard holds), Black Hawk Down. There’s always a lot of dust, and usually an orange or sepia filter to signal “third world.” Make it a steely blue for Eastern Europe (Extraction 2).
The beard is strong with The Covenant, which loads both an escape and a rescue into a two-part story about Bagram air base weapons wrangler Master Sgt. John Kinley (Jake Gyllenhaal, with 5-star facial hair) breaking in a new translator in Afghanistan in 2008, at the height of the US/Taliban conflict. The translator, Ahmed (Dar Salim, The Devil’s Double, 4.5) has a bit of a shady background, but he’s smart and entirely unimpressed by Kinley’s rock star reputation. Ahmed isn’t an ideologue; he’s in it for the money and the visa for him and his family. And this is where The Covenant will hook you or lose you (and possibly confuse you, as G.But’s forthcoming Kandahar is about a CIA dude and his translator uncovering an Afghan conspiracy). But really, if you’re looking for a thoughtful deconstruction of US foreign policy, the stabilising – or not – power of military force, the ethics of the Afghanistan engagement, Western complicity in Taliban traction, why one life is so sacred, and PTSD from a Guy Ritchie movie all I have to say is: What the hell are you doing here? If you’re looking for a solid chase thriller, you’ve come to the right place.
The Beard game is strong
Another thing you won’t get is patented Ritchie banter and rapid fire editing, the kind of camaraderie-building and antagonist signalling that’s a signature of Snatch, and RocknRolla, and King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (an underrated good time, fight me!) and The Gentlemen. Ritchie started plying his trade way outside his comfort zone in 2019 with Aladdin and surprised everyone with his deft hand at... gulp… family entertainment. The Covenant is his first foray outside the urban space (19th century London in Sherlock Holmes is still London), and Ritchie’s almost innate ability to build suspense and hit the beats of a thriller serves him well here. The only real difference is a dearth of silly jokes and laddish humour, but hey. The Taliban and systematically murdered translators is hardly a laff riot.
Part one of the story pivots on Kinley’s entire squad getting wiped out while looking for a weapons cache, and Ahmed’s determination to get the wounded sergeant over the Taliban controlled mountains (Spain doubles for Afghanistan) and back to Bagram. Alone. With no firearms, little water, and targets on their backs. Part two picks up with Kinley at home, safe and sound with his family, either guilt-wracked or irritated (hard to tell) by the idea that Ahmed saved his life but was nonetheless left behind, despite the promise of safe haven in the US for his work. So he goes to get him himself.
The Covenant is the oddest military bromance on record. There’s a fascinating, low-dialogue dynamic at play between Kinley and Ahmed, one that feels less like friendship and vaunted grunt brotherhood and more transactional, which is an interesting angle few war dramas consider. You never get the impression Ahmed is helping Kinley because he cares deeply about this man’s precious life. He’s playing a long game that will get him, his wife and infant son the fuck out of a repressive state. By the same token, Kinley’s fevered dreams and sense of incompletion grates on him. He doesn’t want to “owe” Ahmed, he wants to stop obsessing; it’s almost as if he’s pissed off Ahmed saved him. It’s an itch Ritchie and co-writers Ivan Atkinson and Marn Davies could have scratched more, but Gyllenhaal (who’s always been intensely expressive in the eyes) and Salim find a curious thread to tug on, and pull it as far as they can. And Salim makes you feel every step of that trek over the hills.
The rest of the cast exists to flesh out the connection between Kinley and Ahmed, though Jonny Lee Miller (The Crown, Trainspotting, a weak facial hair game) as Colonel Vokes and Alexander Ludwig (Bad Boys for Life, Vikings, too hipster) as Sgt. Declan O'Brady, the brass keeping an eye on Kinley in-country and out, are blessedly atypical of the brass type. O’Brady’s the one to set Kinley up with merc Eddie Parker (Homelander on The Boys, Antony Starr, 4) to help with his rescue. Toss in some slick, dusty, but evocative work – particularly Kinley’s subjective recollection – by DOP Ed Wild (London has Fallen, Halo) and a tensely propulsive score by Ritchie regular Christopher Benstead and you’ve got yourself a, ahem, hairy thrill ride. Sorry. Couldn’t resist. — DEK