The Covenant
The Covenant
Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Dar Salim, Alexander Ludwig, Anthony Starr
Directed by Guy Ritchie
Sergeant John Kinley (Jake Gyllenhaal) recently lost his last interpreter to a roadside bomb, and recruits Ahmed (Dar Salim) to be his new interpreter. While it seems Ahmed is in it for the money, he has a more personal vendetta against the Taliban: they killed his son, and he uses his knowhow and his ability to read people to help John and his men out of numerous traps set by the Taliban, even though it seems he and John don't really have a connection outside of that. When John and his men are finally ambushed, John is wounded, leaving Ahmed to come to his rescue and carry him through dangerous mountain terrain and terrorist threats to safety. Returning home to America John has visions of what happened, and learns that Ahmed, his wife, and young child weren't granted visas to America, and he knows that they're in constant danger. As he struggles to get them visas, he learns the bureaucratic red tape is long and difficult, leading him to return to Afghanistan on his own to rescue Ahmed and his family before the Taliban finds them.
The Good:
"The Covenant" is filled with intense, action packed fighting sequences that is Guy Ritchie's bread and butter. He knows how to shoot an action sequence that gives audiences adrenaline, and there's no shortage of that here. Bullets fly, bodies fall, and bombs explode left and right, keeping the attention of the moviegoer that thinks they're getting an action-packed war film.
Jake Gyllenhaal gives a commanding performance, especially during the second half. While the first half is filled with action, the second part deals with John's desire to save Ahmed from the Taliban by himself, and seeing how difficult it is to get the visas for him and his family is downright criminal, because that's probably how it actually happens (and why it rarely happened during the war). You sense his frustration and anger as he tries to talk to someone about it, only to be put on hold time and again until he finally gets fed up and decides to do it himself. Gyllenhaal expresses his emotions through his eyes, and you can see the intensity through them as he embarks on what might be a suicide mission in order to repay a debt that he could never pay.
The story is a deeply emotional one, which is surprising considering the action surrounding it. At its core, "The Covenant" is a story about two men and the unspoken covenant they made with one another to keep the other alive. When John is wounded in battle, Ahmed could've ran away and had been free, but he sacrificed his (and his family's) freedom to save John and transport him through rough terrain and even rougher foes to keep him alive. In return, John risks everything to save Ahmed and his family for saving his own life, thus completing their unspoken covenant.
The Bad:
At a little over two hours, the film is a bit long in the strange tonal imbalances it tells. While it's technically split into two stories, the first story takes way too long to develop, including a way-too-long montage of Ahmed dragging John through the terrain (which would've been fine if Ritchie didn't include it again in snippets of John's dreams later on) that results in the second act feeling rushed and contrived. It was months after John returned home before he went back for Ahmed, and during that time he was the Taliban's most wanted man, and no one could find him. After a day John was able to track him down with ease, and there was an uneasy feeling of "white savior complex" taking place as John attempts to rescue Ahmed.
Speaking of Ahmed, his character is disappointingly under-developed. Dar Salim is an excellent actor, but he's more seen here than heard, an imposing figure with very little words. It's revealed that he agreed to be an interpreter because the Taliban killed his son, but there's no other mention of that other than when the soldier told John, and you'd be forgiven if you forgot that's the reason he signed up in the first place. It would've had more impact if his story had been told more thoroughly than it was, because as it is he's nothing more than a man who needed saving at the end, even though he committed a truly heroic thing in saving John's life in the first place.
The Verdict:
Although it seemed Guy Ritchie was going to tell a story about how we left interpreters to fend for themselves in Afghanistan, "The Covenant" is instead a mix of personal rescue mission and epic war movie rolled into one, and while it's not bad, it's not one that'll be often remembered years down the road.
The Score: A-
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