The Covenant is a 2023 action war thriller directed by Guy Ritchie and starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Dar Salim.
In the war in Afghanistan, John Kinley, a U.S. Army Sergeant, recruits and befriends Ahmed, who has a personal vendetta against the Taliban over the death of his son, to help interpret with local Afghans. During a mission, they are caught off guard but Ahmed saves Kinley before he could be captured and helps him escape. Upon returning to the United States, Kinley learns that Ahmed is in danger and with authorities unable to attempt a rescue, he must now return to the war zone he once fought in in order to save his friend, who is holed up somewhere in the country, before the Taliban get to him first.
The film was released on April 21st.
Not to be confused with the 2006 film.
Previews: Official Trailer
Tropes:
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Even though Ahmed spends days arduously lugging Kinley through the open desert, his scalp remains shaved down to the skin. Likewise, Kinley only gets a single trickle of blood from a rifle-butt blow to his forehead.
- Bittersweet Ending: Kinley manages to rescue Ahmed and his family, but the Taliban would finally seize control of Afghanistan, leaving more than 300 translators executed for collaborating with the U.S. military, while thousands are still in hiding.
- Boom, Headshot!: Ahmed uses these in two instances, both while saving John's life. The first is after John was injured, and sees Ahmed wield to a pistol to finish off three Taliban soldiers he had shot with a rifle. The second instance is when a trip of Taliban soldiers come across him and the wagon John is in. One Taliban sees John in the wagon and looks up to receive a bullet in the face. Ahmed immediately follows up by shooting the driver fo the truck they arrived in before the third forced hand-to-hand combat.
- Determinator: Ahmed drags a wounded Kinley over 100 kilometers through the deserts and mountains of enemy territory to safety.
- Can't Kill You, Still Need You: The reason the Taliban haven't tortured and killed Ahmed's brother for his location is because they still do business with him.
- Catapult Nightmare: Kinley has nightmares about the time Ahmed rescued him after getting home. We're seen one time of him suddenly waking up after such nightmare.
- Death from Above: The AC-130 gunship is fittingly called "Angel of Death" for its ability to easily dispatch of dozens of Taliban infantry in no time.
- Deadpan Snarker: Ahmed. Especially notable in his first scene.
Kinley:"What was your job before this?"
Ahmed :"Mechanic."
Kinley :"You any good with cars?"
Ahmed :"Anything with an engine."
Kinley :"Oh yeah? Well what's this?" Gestures to the hood of the jeep he's sitting in.
Ahmed : Barely looks away from Kinsley's face. "That's an engine, sir."
- Drowning My Sorrows: As Kinley gets increasingly despondent over his inability to secure a visa for Ahmed, he is shown throwing a drunken tantrum at a military call center operator in front of a bottle of liquor.
- Even Evil Has Standards: The operator of an opium den looks down on the Taliban as "murderers."
- Gangsta Style: Soldiers hold their guns sideways when shooting from the side of their cover.
- Gunship Rescue: Ahmed and Kinley are being overrun by Taliban soldiers, are out of ammo, when of a AC-130 Gunship and a Apache helicopter arrive, annihilating the Taliban force.
- I Owe You My Life: Kinley owes Ahmed for saving his life, so he desperately tries to get Visas for Ahmed and his family through official channels, but eventually resorts to physically going back to Afghanistan to rescue him.
- I Want Them Alive!: The local Taliban want Ahmed and Kinley captured alive to the point where they have to restrain one of their own from bludgeoning Kinley to death.
- Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Subverted. While a Taliban member is threatened with a stay in Guantanamo Bay, ultimately he talks after simply being bribed.
- Karma Houdini: The Taliban commanders are left untouched throughout the film, because they are never seen out in the field and remain in their quarters.
- Mangst: Ahmed drags the half-dead, practically unconscious John on a sled for a few days, smuggles him in a truck, has two (very) close encounters with Taliban, then pushes him in a wagon for days on end through a burning village and over brutal mountain terrain. Obviously struggling with the weight, he hits a pothole that he can't quite get the wheels through. Letting the wagon down, he sits on the edge of the path looking out over the wilderness and sniffles back tears for several minutes. Then he goes back to pushing the wagon.
- Manly Tears: Ahmed sheds some tears while pushing John through a mountain pass.
- Meaningful Appearance: Ahmed's brother makes note of Kinley's "beautiful blue eyes" because they are like the eyes of Ahmed's murdered son.
- Obstructive Bureaucrat: Kinley fails to secure Ahmed and his family visas through official channels even after trying for months.
- Poor Communication Kills: Kinley returns to Afghanistan in incognito to avoid getting the attention of the Taliban. He hires a group of Private Military Contractors lead by a man named Parker to help him rescue Ahmed, but they are reluctant to help him even though he payed them, so he goes on the mission alone. During the mission, Parker's men find out Kinley's true identity, prompting them to help him out. At the end of the mission, Parker tells Kinley that if they'd known who he is, they'd helped him immediately.
- Private Military Contractors: Kinley resorts to teaming up with one of these to rescue Ahmed but is forced to go solo when they're called away on a different mission that is until they come back via Gunship Rescue.
- Punch-Clock Hero: Ahmed's brother sends a minion to act as Kinley's driver in Afghanistan, and the man ultimately helps rescue Ahmed and his family against a furious attack from the Taliban. He's just obeying his boss's orders, though, and is usually an opium trafficker.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: During the shootout at the mine, a slow violin tune is being played while the Americans are being overrun by the Taliban.
- Tantrum Throwing: After getting irritated by the repeatedly failed attempts to get the visa for Ahmed via phone, Kinley throws his phone at the mirror.
- Travel Montage: One is used to hammer home the difficulty of the three weeks Ahmed dragged and pushed Kinley through the wilderness and over the mountains. And to skip over what is ultimately one guy and a practically unconscious dude in the middle of nowhere so we can see more important stuff.
- Understanding Wife: Kinley's wife is intially upset about Kinley going back to Afganistan after he just got back and was even presumed KIA, but ultimately understands that she owes Ahmed for bringing her husband alive back to her.
- Ungrateful Bastard: America to Ahmed who went through hell to get an US soldier to safety but the nation drags its feet getting him and his family visas to escape the Taliban who are hunting him precisely because he saved an American soldier. More generally, the thousands of translators who are left behind to fend for themselves when America withdrew from Afghanistan.
- You Are Too Late: When they find the IED factory at the mine, Kinley's team calls for reinforcements while being ambushed by Taliban soldiers. Eventually they get overrun and everyone is killed except Kinley and Ahmed who run into the woods, chased by a group of Taliban soldiers. By the time the reinforcement arrives, all they can do is to collect the bodies of the fallen soldiers.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: The opening scene introduces Kinley and his unit. Each character gets two lines of text giving their name and rank,except the current interpreter. One of these, Jack Jack, is killed alongside the interpreter within a matter of minutes. Despite dying before the halfway mark himself, Jack Jack's replacement still gets more screen time than him.
