The Covenant
The Covenant
Guy Ritchie's The Covenant follows US Army Sergeant John Kinley (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Afghan interpreter Ahmed (Dar Salim). After an ambush, Ahmed goes to Herculean lengths to save Kinley's life. When Kinley learns that Ahmed and his family were not given safe passage to America as promised, he must repay his debt by returning to the war zone to retrieve them before the Taliban hunts them down first.
Kevin Ward reviewedJuly 3, 2025
I’ve not been a big fan of Guy Ritchie‘s more recent films. This film has a very different feel than most other Guy Ritchie films I’ve seen though. It’s a war drama/thriller with a fairly straight forward plot. No elaborate ruse de guerres. And it’s extremely effective—at least for the first two-thirds. There’s a really well realized action set piece that takes place at a mine. Jake Gyllenhaal and Dar Salim’s are both really excellent as the leads, Gyllenhaal as Sergeant John Kinley and Salim as Afghan interpreter Ahmed. And everything up to when Ahmed is carrying John Kinley across the Afghan mountains and out of Taliban controlled territory, is really gripping entertainment even if the focus is mostly on developing these two characters and their bond. It’s the last third that loses some of that thrill. The shift to Kinley’s rescue of Ahmed and his family is much less interesting or exciting. For example, there are several scenes of Gyllenhaal screaming into a phone trying to get Ahmed’s family’s visas. And though the final action sequence injects some tensions back into the film, the literal deus ex machina finale was a bit of a let down. Those final act misgivings aside, this was a really enjoyable film.
Update: just want to add a few thoughts. Reading more about this it seems that this specific story is not true despite the photograph montage at the close of the film. It’s presented at the end in such a way that leads you to believe these are photos of John Kinley and Ahmed. Ostensibly it’s likely the only true part of the story is the fact that we’ve abandoned thousands of Afghan interpreters that were promised visas for assisting in our war effort. All the other acts of American heroism are likely complete works of fiction. So….there’s that.