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steampunkforever · 6 months

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In January of 2021, upon Trump's removal, several US generals bragged about having lied to the former president on how many soldiers were actually stationed in Afghanistan, having assured Trump that the US had minimal personnel over there and therefore he didn't need to shake things up with his foreign military policy. That summer, the Biden administration, resolved to pull out before the 20 year mark, absolutely botched the entire operation, not only leading to civilian and American deaths, but to the handover of millions of dollars of US military hardware and surrender of the entire country to the Taliban.

The last significant disaster of imperial warfare anywhere near the complete fiasco of Biden's Afghanistan pullout was the evacuation of Vietnam, and even then the last helicopter off the roof of the embassy was nowhere near as disastrous as the live footage we saw of desperate Afghans losing their grips on the side of US Army planes and plummeting to their deaths on the runway below.

Nor did the Ford administration's Vietnam pullout betray as many local US allies and their families as the Afghan pullout left high and dry, which is in part what Guy Ritchie's "The Covenant" is about.

This entire section of military history is rich with drama, despair, conflict, and tragedy. Even as footage of Taliban fighters using US weapons to threaten schoolgirls hit the internet, cynical commentators placed bets that a Hollywood cash grab was already in the works. Enter Guy Ritchie's "The Covenant," a movie that isn't about any of this.

The Covenant, a movie with a title so bland they had to make sure to stick the director's name in front of it so you'd go watch it, isn't a bad movie as much as an underwhelming one. The action is more or less solid, unrealistic enough that you know what'll happen next but grounded enough to remind you not to have too much fun. Give this a more engaging cast and some zany plotlines and you'd have a solid film to turn your brain off for. Except this is supposed to be emotional.

The basis of the film is pretty straightforward: a squad of US soldiers tasked with tracking down Taliban IED factories gets a new street-smart Afghan interpreter. After a firefight at a hidden bomb shop, all the squad is killed except for the squad leader and the interpreter. After the squad leader, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, is shot repeatedly, the interpreter (played by the charismatic Dar Salim) drags him the countless miles back to base, dodging Taliban patrols as he tries to keep the two of them alive.

Once rescued, Gyllenhaal's character gets back to the US where he's greeted with the news that the government won't give the interpreter and his family the visas they were promised until they are present for the process, an impossibility due to the interpreter's rescue of Gyllenhaal serving to paint a target on his back and drive his family into hiding. The rest of the film hinges on Gyllenhaal, wracked with guilt at his debt to the interpreter, seeking to find a way to rescue the family and repay his life debt.

This film is liminal, inasmuch as we the audience can clearly see it hanging between two stories. It badly wants to be the gratifying military thriller about two men with different outlooks on life bound together by a bond (Covenant) of iron, their story ending as they're rescued from a horde of oncoming enemies by attack helicopters and a big plane with lots of guns. Yet above its head, much like a predator drone, hangs the fact that this film could've been about so much more.

This is a movie that knows it should be about more than a single hypothetical instance where the government took too long to get an interpreter his visa. It desperately WANTS to be about how the US government betrayed its promise of help for thousands of individuals who were relying on those visas and evacuation to save them from violent reprisal at the hands of the Taliban.

The end credits even confirm this. As the movie closes with a postscript on how many interpreters and other support staff the US abandoned in the summer of 2021, a selection of photos of real interpreters alongside the units they worked with scrolls alongside the credits in what is easily the most powerful segment of the film.

This movie WANTS to be about Task Force Pineapple. It wants so badly to be a tense thriller about a fictional rescue from occupied Taliban territory. It would frankly be more fun that way if we're being honest with ourselves here. But it isn't, instead choosing to walk the fine line between somber reminder that we've still got people who need help over there and the fact that Guy Ritchie mostly just does fun action.

Jake Gyllenhaal is of course a great actor and Dar Salim's charisma does an equally impressive job in this film as they prop up an overall weak plot. This movie would otherwise just be a direct-to-streaming army film your uncle mentions once and then forgets, but Salim and Gyllenhaal give it heart that it needs but is too scared to execute.

As a film this isn't necessarily a bad movie. If formulaic and predictable with the uninteresting action and basic plot, it executes the story in a way that I would say is overall a net positive. Guy Ritchie might be phoning it in, but he's still Guy Ritchie. The main problem with the film is that it clearly is reaching towards grander goals than what it's being allowed.

At least they didn't get Clint Eastwood to direct it.

#filmposting #the covenant #guy ritchie's the covenant #film #jake gyllenhaal

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kaleidoscope-vol2 · 1 year

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I need Jake to play a serial killer stat.

#jake gyllenhaal #the covenant #guy ritchie's the covenant

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mathgirl24 · 1 year

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I saw Guy Ritchie's The Covenant in the movie theater. It was pretty good (only if you can watch war movies... it's set in post 9/11 Afghanistan and there's a whole lot of killing).

For my Hunger Games peeps, it also stars Alexander Ludwig in a small role. I kept thinking he looked familiar then it finally hit me who it was.

#guy ritchie's the covenant #the covenant

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freshmoviequotes · 11 months

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Guy Ritchie's the Covenant (2023)

#guy ritchie's the covenant #guy ritchie #jake gyllenhaal #movies #film #2023

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hollytanaka · 7 months

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the soundtrack's on spotify finally??!?!??!

brb i'm not gonna stfu about this

#guy ritchie's the covenant

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josefksays · 11 months

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#Guy Ritchie's The Covenant #Jake Gyllenhaal #scene

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agentnico · 11 months

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Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant (2023) Review

This movie opens with an aerial shot accompanied by the song ‘A Horse with No Name’. The use of that song immediately gains this film extra points. Well played Guy Ritchie!

Plot: 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.

I really enjoy Guy Ritchie films - especially his geezer-gangster flicks that feature kinetic high-octane action shots, British dark humour and noir-style chutzpah. It’s only certain directors that you watch their films and you immediately recognise its their film without even needing to know beforehand their involvement. Guy Ritchie’s style is signature to his characteristics, and the recent Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre that came out earlier this year exhibited those qualities with a delightful Statham bang in the middle. However in cometh The Covenant - a strong departure from Ritchie’s prior works. Away with the rough East End and grizzly jokes, and instead what we have is a very reserved and straight-faced war thriller.

The Covenant is very much two films meshed into one. The first half is a solid action war film, as we’ve thrown right into the midst of the Afghan war and the US troops taking down Taliban outposts, with amazing sweeping shots of the desert terrains and the tensions that come between the two sides. It was riveting, suspenseful and interesting, and honestly if that was the whole movie it would have been a very satisfying viewing experience. However the last hour is more so a separate recon and rescue mission mostly undertaken by one soldier - another epic film on its own. That second part is really what makes this film stand out from other war movies, as it really reiterates the central theme of a reality check on bond, pledge and commitment. This is accompanied by very focused non-nonsense directing to the stellar screenwriting (minus a couple of awkward exchanges between Gyllenhaal and his wife played by Emily Beecham - their dialogue during their calls felt as if they were written by a computer AI); excellent cinematography; a steady pace that knew when to take things slow and when to amplify the action in accordance with the story beats; spot-on music score by Christopher Benstead which especially in the final 15 minutes really underlined the emotional journey we’ve just been through; and finally some excellent performances.

The two actors that carry this movie are Jake Gyllenhaal and Dar Salim. The bond between them and the emotion they manage to deliver, something simply through their facial expressions without even saying anything, was truly impeccable. This isn’t the kind of film that will be remembered when the Oscars come around, but honestly both deserve some acting nominations. But both are on top-form, with Salim’s portrayal of Ahmed especially managing to captivate the audience with caring for his character’s fate. Very well written and superbly acted. Appearances by Jonny Lee Miller and Antony Starr work well too.

Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant is a very straightforward story of survival in a war landscape, and there is haunting feeling of knowing that elements of this story are true to many people’s reality. I applaud Ritchie for evidently coming out of his comfort zone and delivering such a serious film with such a heavy subject, but also managing to make it so engaging by getting us to care for these characters. This is a well-made movie, a true army flick, made by real men for men! War is never good, but friendship and valour are always worth of admire.

Overall score: 7/10

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tinyreviews · 1 year

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Ahmed’s wife and child, though just passive plot devices, really help ratchet up the stakes and tension.

Guy Ritchie's The Covenant (or simply The Covenant) is a 2023 American action thriller film co-written, produced and directed by Guy Ritchie. The film stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Dar Salim.

#the covenant #the covenant review #guy ritchie's the covenant #guy ritchie #jake gyllenhaal #dar salim #action thriller #afganistan #afghanistan war #movie review #2023 #wild west

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rookie-critic · 1 year

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Rookie-Critic's Film Review Weekend Wrap-Up - Week of 4/24-4/30/2023

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019, dir. David Leitch) This was a good off-shoot for the F&F series. The Rock & Jason Statham feel comfortable as the titular duo and have excellent on-screen chemistry, and the action feels clean and exciting, which is no surprise considering the film was directed by John Wick-veteran David Leitch, who fits the franchise like a glove. I really enjoyed all of the climactic fight scenes with Hobbs' family in Samoa. Honestly, the more Cliff Curtis can be in major feature films, the better. Idris Elba and Vanessa Kirby also make for great additions to the growing franchise. It never really blew my mind like some of the mainline Fast films have, but I don't think it was really trying to. Sometimes a movie is just good, dumb, clean fun, and that's perfectly alright with me. I just hate that this film (along with a multitude of other behind-the-scenes reasons) means that we probably won't be seeing Luke Hobbs in any of the remaining Fast movies.

Score: 7/10

Currently available to rent/purchase on digital (iTunes, Amazon, Vudu, etc.) and on 4K, Blu-ray & DVD through Universal Studios.

F9: The Fast Saga (2021, dir. Justin Lin) After the wholly disappointing and, frankly, upsetting misstep that was The Fate of the Furious, I was curious to see if F9 would continue the downward trend, or if it would step its game up to bring some of the franchise's former glory back. When in doubt, trust in Justin Lin, who comes swooping back into the franchise for the first time since Fast & Furious 6 to save the day, with fan favorite character Han Lue in tow. This is biggest, wildest fast film yet, and I mean that as a compliment. That's not to say that it's the best (that honor is still held by Fast Five), but it does return a lot of the wonder and sincerity that Five, Six, and (to a lesser extent) Seven had. Not to mention that it is the first film in the franchise to incorporate Sean, Twinkie, and Earl from Tokyo Drift into the family in a major way since Tokyo Drift (if you don't count a tiny cameo from Lucas Black's Sean in Furious 7). Nothing about F9 feels as baseline or low-effort as the stuff in Fate did. Even the introduction of a mysterious third Toretto sibling that, for some reason, we hadn't heard about for the past eight films feels out of place or shoehorned in. Needless to say, where Fate of the Furious had me wondering if the franchise was receding in quality, F9 has me just as pumped to go see Fast X in May as I was after watching Fast Five.

Score: 8/10

Currently streaming on HBO Max.

Guy Ritchie's The Covenant (2023, dir. Guy Ritchie) I went into this with a lot of apprehension. I was not a huge fan of the last Guy Ritchie film that tried to take a more serious approach to its tone (2021's Wrath of Man). It had a lot of grandstanding machismo bullshit that I hate to see in modern filmmaking. However, Ritchie really surprised me with The Covenant. He has Jake Gyllenhaal acting at the top of his game here with an equally impressive turn from Dar Salim as Ahmed the interpreter. While the story is fiction, it highlights a huge problem in the aftermath of the War on Terror: thousands of Afghani interpreters were hired by the U.S. military and promised special immigration visas for their service; a promise that turned out to be hollow. It sends its message without grandstanding and is critical of the U.S. military without putting itself on a soapbox. The film does tend to get overly self-indulgent during big sweeping climactic scenes and in certain emotional ones, as well. It's the one thing about the film that feels out of place, but even in spite of that, The Covenant is an excellent film and proof that Ritchie is capable of making a more serious-minded, message-oriented film than the humorous heist or caper films he's known for.

Score: 8/10

Currently only in theaters.

Chevalier (2023, dir. Stephen Williams) I'll just say up front that my bias might show a little in my scoring of this one. I have never been the biggest fan of 16-1800's period pieces. I'm not sure what it is, but something about them has just never gelled with me. That being said, there's nothing really wrong with Chevalier. In fact, it is, in my opinion, much better than the average film of this sensibility. The acting is fantastic and it sheds light on an oft-overlook but quintessentially influential figure in both classical music and the French revolution. The music is a huge plus in the film's favor, of course, and the costumes are, as is the case with most film's set in this era, masterfully crafted. I think my biggest qualm with the film is that it stops right as the French revolution is getting started and then tells the audience that Chevalier went on to be a great leader during the Revolution. Maybe it's just me, but I think that sounds interesting enough to make it's own film about. This almost makes me wonder (and I don't ever really feel this way about films) if this would have been better suited as an 6-8 episode miniseries as opposed to a film. We still could have focused a 2-3 episodes on Chevalier's childhood and young adulthood in France's pre-Revolution music scene, but then dedicated an entire half of the show to his accomplishments during the Revolution. Regardless, I don't want that to take away from the fact the Chevalier was quite good, and definitely worth the ticket price. I just think more could have been done with the wealth of untold history that exists within the lifetime of this figure.

Score: 7/10

Currently only in theaters.

Polite Society (2023, dir. Nida Manzoor) This movie absolutely ruled. It gave me all of the frenetic energy of the best Edgar Wright films while also giving me the genre-bending and jaw-dropping off-the-wall attitude of something like Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. This was a film that wasn't afraid to go for it in every way, shape, and form. From campy-but-well-choreographed fight sequences, to plot twist that twist so hard they'll make your head spin, to an unabashed approach to a female-empowerment narrative. Not to mention a story that is very uniquely Indian that touches on the nature of arranged marriages and classicism. Polite Society had everything that I look for in a film, and is a very early contender for the best of 2023 list. I'll save some of my more in-depth thoughts on stuff like the acting, writing, and cinematography for this week's full-length, but just know that if anything I've mentioned above sounds even remotely interesting, make this a priority watch (I don't want to say definitively that this is the best of the weekend's new movies because I haven't seen Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret yet, and I hear that is pretty amazing, as well).

Score: 10/10

Currently only in theaters.

A Good Man (2014, dir. Keoni Waxman) Yikes. Just... yikes. Friday movie nights with my college friends can get pretty wild sometimes. I've never seen a Steven Seagal film before, and maybe this wasn't the best one to start with (or, inversely, maybe it's the best one to start with). Seagal is clearly past his prime here (or, again, maybe in his prime, depending on your perspective), and looks like he's constantly on the verge of passing out. His words come out slurred and mumbled like he's on his deathbed, and his "action" in the film is cut around so heavily you really never see him actually do anything. The story is non-existent and the writing contains some of the most unintentionally hilarious one-liners I have ever heard in my entire life (I'm partial to the one where Seagal utters the baffling sentence "Well, I'm sorry to hear that, because now I'll snatch every motherfucker birthday." No, there's no typo there, that is verbatim what he says. My meme review is that this is great. Real "The Room" caliber stuff, here. My actual review is that obviously Seagal is a lunatic that is just self-funding whatever production he can fart out in an afternoon at this point. Honestly, if you want some quality takes on this, visit the Letterbox'd page.

Score: 1/10

Currently streaming for free with ads on Redbox. Tzi Ma should be above stuff like this.

Sisu (2023, dir. Jalmari Helander) I really wanted to love Sisu. I'm as much a fan of mindless action movies as the next guy, but the truth is I thought it was just ok. It delivers on exactly what it promised everyone in the trailers, one-man army kills the crap out of some Nazis for 91 minutes, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. There are a handful of really fun set pieces and lots of entertaining gore for fans of that kind of thing, but it just felt incredibly hollow. There are no characters in Sisu, only templates of archetypes that things happen to. No one learns anything, there's no journey to be had, merely an avatar quickly making his way through bodies to get to a destination. I'm not implying that every single movie needs to have some grand, elaborate story with deep and complex characters and rich subtext or anything like that, but I would have liked at least some substance to this. There are still things to enjoy in Sisu, and from what I've read I'm a slight outlier in not thinking this is incredible, but it just didn't connect with me. However, don't let that stop you from seeing this in the theater. The cinematography and style alone are worth the big screen experience.

Score: 6/10

Currently only in theaters.

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