Guy Ritchie’s new film, “The Covenant”, stars Jake Gyllenhaal as an American soldier on the trail of his Afghan translator.
WHAT IS IT ABOUT ?
On his last tour in Afghanistan, Sergeant John Kinley teams up with interpreter Ahmed to survey the area. When their unit is ambushed during a patrol, Kinley and Ahmed are the only survivors.
As enemy fighters pursue them, Ahmed risks his life to carry an injured Kinley to safety. Back on American soil, Kinley learns that Ahmed and his family have not been granted the opportunity to enter the United States as promised. Determined to protect his friend and repay his debt, Kinley returns to the war zone to retrieve Ahmed and his family.
WHO IS IT WITH?
This new feature marks director Guy Ritchie’s first collaboration with Jake Gyllenhaal, who returns to the war film genre eighteen years after Jarhead.
While Sam Mendes’ film took place during the first Gulf War, the action of The Covenant takes place in an almost contemporary era, during the last months of the war in Afghanistan.
In addition to Jake Gyllenhaal, the film’s cast includes several well-known headliners, including Alexander Ludwig (Vikings) and Antony Starr (The Boys), but also Danish comedian Dar Salim (Borgen), as translator Ahmed with whom the main character of the film befriends.
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IT’S WORTH CHECKING OUT ?
Guy Ritchie’s films follow each other but are not alike. Barely a few months after delivering his pastiche of James Bond with Operation Fortune: Ruse of War, the English filmmaker returns to us this time with a war film with a more serious tone, entitled The Covenant.
With this film, Guy Ritchie wanted to focus on the dramatic aspect of war. Nevertheless, The Covenant includes several breathtakingly realistic action sequences, less in order to impress its viewers than to create a climate of permanent danger necessary for the plot.
There is in The Covenant both the best and the worst of Guy Ritchie’s cinema. While his previous film Opération Fortune took on the appearance of a self-parody, this new achievement allows the English filmmaker to step aside in favor of his plot.
The serious and dramatic tone of the film thus contrasts with the more ironic atmosphere and the hard-hitting dialogues which made the specificity of its cinema, in particular thanks to the success of Snatch and Arnaques, crimes and botany.
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The sensitivity of the plot is often spoiled by dramatic effects sometimes bordering on the grotesque, and an interpretation over the top by Gyllenhaal. Wanting too much to reach its audience, Guy Ritchie’s film displays an obvious lack of sincerity which, in the end, prevents us from being truly moved by the dramatic subject of its story.
A filmmaker in identity crisis
Despite his thirty-year career, Guy Ritchie seems to be hit by an identity crisis. Revealed in his debut for his police comedies, most embodied by Jason Statham, the 54-year-old filmmaker has recently entered into a veritable bulimia of filming, with no less than six films made over the past four years!
From parody comedies (The Gentlemen, Operation Fortune) to live-action Disney productions (Aladdin, and soon Hercules), the latter has also tried his hand at drama, notably with An Angry Man (the remake of The Conveyor) and therefore The Covenant, his very first war film.
By chaining the shootings of films as complementary as they are distinct, is Guy Ritchie definitely in the process of abandoning his status as an author? Unlike Quentin Tarantino, to whom he is often compared, should the British filmmaker also have retired rather than prolong his career with films without ideas and without identity?
The Hollywood industry will still be able to congratulate itself on having at its disposal a director of orders of such caliber, capable of shooting quickly and efficiently and whose notoriety allows him to surround himself with big names in cinema.
But fans of Snatch and Swindles, Crimes and Botanicals will most certainly have to resolve to expect nothing more from Guy Ritchie’s films…
The film The Covenant starring Jake Gyllenhaal is available now on Amazon Prime Video.
Discover the list of all the films currently available on the platform!