![]() While it in some ways tries to take an apolitical stance - which is to say, it remains affixed to the ground-level goings on, rather than the bigger picture of war - its imagery and narrative are never subversive enough to avoid the ensuing complications inherent to the genre. “The Covenant” exists not only in the shadow of American wars, but of American war cinema, whether or not it means to. Eventually, Kinley decides to take action and extract Ahmed and his family from Afghanistan himself before the Taliban can track him down, resulting in a razor-wire final act. Kinley’s subsequent discharge and return home leave him wracked with guilt, as “The Covenant” transforms into a visa drama, following the sergeant’s fraught attempts to simply get a straight answer over the phone about why Ahmed hasn’t been granted immigrant status not since one-location thrillers like “Buried” and “Locke” have phone calls felt so urgent. This is despite the fact that Ahmed spends much of the second act on a one-man rescue mission, skillfully defending an injured Kinley from dangerous scenarios over several days (which Ritchie practically films through hellfire). However, the film’s overarching structure affords only Kinley a complete emotional exploration. Kinley and Ahmed are both men forged in anger and loss, and they frequently butt heads. And yet, each individual operation rests on a knife’s edge, between encroaching enemy forces, and Ahmed navigating tricky situations via a learned transactionalism, as a local who was once in business with the Taliban, rather than following Kinley’s strictly procedural approach. visas and asylum in exchange for their help (many of whom remain in limbo to this day), but its timeline, which creeps up on America’s disastrous 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan and the subsequent Taliban takeover, imbues both its big-picture actions and Kinley’s various missions with a fatalistic streak. It not only references the many Afghan interpreters promised U.S. Right from its opening text, “The Covenant” - which Ritchie co-wrote alongside Ivan Atkinson and Marn Davies - positions its premise as a failure of American policy. It’s his way or the highway, but Ahmed’s own motives for signing up, and his roguish methods of extracting information, make him an uneasy partner for the more by-the-book Kinley (albeit one who gets results). His mission is to find and “neutralize” as many local Taliban weapons facilities as possible, no matter what hurdles present themselves. Ahmed is quick to correct Kinley on the pronunciation of his name, though this doesn’t deter Kinley’s stern condescension - a byproduct of his no-nonsense approach. John Kinley ( Jake Gyllenhaal), reluctantly agrees to a replacement interpreter, in the form of the disciplined but equally hard-headed Ahmed (Dar Salim). Months later, their headstrong leader, Sgt. Only this time, their quips are immediately offset by a lethal tension at a military checkpoint, where their inspection goes horribly awry, killing their local translator (as well as a member of their ranks, though in the film’s rare moment of opacity, it’s hard to tell exactly who). Set in 2018 - nearly two decades into America’s occupation of Afghanistan - “The Covenant” opens as most Ritchie movies do, with an eclectic group of oddly nicknamed fellas (Army grunts with callsigns like Jizzy, J.J., Jack-Jack, and Chow-Chow) mucking about with firearms. ![]() ‘Book Club: The Next Chapter’ Review: You’re Going to Need a Lot of Wine to Enjoy This Sloppy Sequel It might even lead one to ask why hasn’t been making “serious” cinema this whole time. However, it remains firmly within Ritchie’s stylistic wheelhouse - his command of the swiftly moving camera, and its focus on violent masculine subjects, are intact - while proving to be intense and effective as a straightforward war drama. The premise is hardly “Ritchie-esque” upon first glance, with a straightforward intensity that conceals no surprise tonal oscillations. soldier’s debt to his Afghan interpreter. It’s an Afghanistan war film about duty and guilt, focused on a U.S. “The Covenant,” on the other hand, is arguably the director’s first foray into purely dramatic territory, the kind that has thus far occupied the margins of his work. For 25 years, the filmmaker’s forte has been whiz-bang action-crime movies like “Snatch,” “RocknRolla,” and the recently released “Operation Fortune,” in which his (usually English) characters rattle off banter like actors in an improv warm-up game. The decision to re-title “The Interpreter” to “ Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant” is an odd one, at least on the surface.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |