With The Covenant, you have yet another example of a recent movie that I would have seen in the theater had it not been for another release.  In this case, it was Chevalier (2022), which I was happy to see judging by my review.  This is one of the advantages of having a blog such as The Legionnaire.  If I cannot remember what I think about a film, all I have to do is go to the website and look up the title.  This works the same for you.  I digress.  The Covenant, also titled Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant (I will be using the former), has the kind of title bound to catch the notice of a practicing Catholic.  This is something I noted in my piece on Chevalier.  What I am happy to report about The Covenant is that it is not the pure action schlock that I assumed.  Read on to find out how.

The Covenant is about the United States’ long war in Afghanistan.  After setting the stage for America’s involvement in the central Asian country, we meet Master Sergeant John Kinley (Jake Gyllenhaal) and his special forces unit.  They are watching over a check point looking for Taliban weapons caches when a stopped vehicle detonates, killing their interpreter.  This leaves their team in need of a new local.  Cooperation with American forces does not make an Afghani popular with their neighbors, but those who do so make this decision based on the enticement of American visas upon the completion of their service.  It is this, and the added incentive of the Taliban killing his son, that brings Ahmed Abdullah (Dar Salim) to Bagram Air Force Base from which Sergeant Kinley’s team operates.  Sergeant Kinley is initially skeptical of this new person, particularly when the interpreter does not exactly follow the sergeant’s directions.  Despite this, Ahmed proves his trust worthiness when he prevents them from riding into an ambush created by a member of the Afghan National Guard.  Then comes their raid on a suspected bomb making location a little over 100 kilometers from their base.  It turns out to have the suspected explosives.  However, shortly after they blow up the store of potential improvised explosive devices (IED), they are descended upon by a large number of Taliban fighters.  In the resulting firefight, everyone is killed except for Ahmed and Sergeant Kinley.  Because they are hopelessly outnumbered, they attempt to flee with a stolen truck before their extraction arrives.  They are forced to abandon the car not long into their escape when it gets a flat tire.  From there, they begin crossing the dangerous Afghanistan landscape, which presents perils in the form of steep cliff sides and hundreds of Taliban insurgents searching for them, particularly after their leader says he wants Ahmed and Sergeant Kinley taken alive.  Their shared experience leads to them forming a bond, which is soon tested. After spending the night at the only house, luckily abandoned, they had seen for miles, they awaken to realize the enemy is nearby.  While Sergeant Kinley begins the process of evasion, he slows when he does not see Ahmed behind him.  This leads to Sergeant Kinley being wounded.  Before he can also be captured, Ahmed intervenes and saves Sergeant Kinley from this fate.  Once safe, for the moment anyway, Ahmed treats Sergeant Kinley’s injuries as best as possible before rigging a sort of stretcher on which to drag the American soldier.  That is not a euphemism, by the way.  Ahmed literally drags Sergeant Kinley for many miles.  At one point, he buys a truck, but Taliban check points make it too dangerous to continue in this manner.  To alleviate this situation, he trades the vehicle with friendly tribes people for a cart.  This he pushes it the rest of the way back to Bagram, having to fend off a few more attackers on his own at the end of this arduous journey.  Throughout, Sergeant Kinley had remained insensate, with Ahmed keeping the soldier safe the entire way.  When Sergeant Kinley comes to, it is in an American hospital and Ahmed nowhere to be found.  Not long thereafter, Sergeant Kinley is back with his family.  He cannot, however, feel settled because of the enormous debt he owes to Ahmed.  The United States government is no help on this matter either.  The obvious solution is to find Ahmed and bring him and his family to the United States and honor the promise of a visa.  There are two problems with this scenario.  The first is that Ahmed and Sergeant Kinley’s feat have made them infamous among the Taliban, who have placed a bounty on them.  Because Ahmed is still in the country, he and his family have gone into hiding, making them difficult to find.  The other is the American bureaucracy frustrating Sergeant Kinley’s efforts to get for Ahmed what is owed to the interpreter.  After a month of being placed on hold during phone calls to various agencies, Sergeant Kinley realizes he is going to have to personally take care of the situation.  With the blessing of Colonel Vokes (Jonny Lee Miller), Sergeant Kinley’s former commanding officer and who later obtains the visas, Sergeant Kinley goes back to Afghanistan.  Once there, he meets up with Eddie Parker (Anthony Starr).  Eddie is to provide the support Sergeant Kinley will need for this rescue mission.  He learns of Ahmed’s location from Ali (Damon Zolfaghari), Ahmed’s brother.  Ali is able to smuggle Sergeant Kinley to Ahmed’s location.  Unfortunately, their trek does not go unnoticed by Taliban.  Not long after Ahmed and Sergeant Kinley reunite, they have to make their way to a nearby dam where Eddie will send his men to extract Ahmed, his family, and Sergeant Kinley.  Because news of Sergeant Kinley’s presence in the country has spread, the American military decides to intervene to help his operation.  Their assistance comes just as Sergeant Kinley’s little band has run out of ammunition and they are about to lose hope.  Instead, they are retrieved, and we close with them riding a plane together back to the United States.

If you are still confused as to what The Covenant means, it is basically a commitment.  Biblically speaking, this is something God has established a few times with His people.  In the Old Testament, this came with the Law, based on the ten commandments, and acts as a guide to getting to Heaven for God’s first people.  Jesus establishes a New Covenant by sacrificing Himself for the sake of the world.  An interesting way of comparing the movie promise to the Biblical one, is to look at how they mirror one another.  For Sergeant Kinley, the sacrifice Ahmed made, and is continuing to make, means that the American has a debt he feels he owes to the Afghan interpreter.  Jesus established a bond once and for all time with humanity by dying on the cross.  In doing so, He paid the debt all of humanity had incurred.  In short, the former came from saving a life, and the latter from willingly sacrificing it.  Of course, Ahmed was risking his neck by doing what he did, though it seems that he and Sergeant Kinley were wanted equally by the Taliban.  Still, how many of us can honestly say we would do the same thing for somebody we barely know, and potentially do not completely trust? What we see in the movie is an extreme example, and I pray none of us have to ever experience it.  Still, I am sure that many of you would answer that rhetorical question with a resounding yes.  I pray that God gives you the courage to do so should that moment, God forbid, arise for you.

As the end credits commence in The Covenant, there are some accompanying pictures of what I assume are real-life Afghani interpreters.  This lends the proceedings an air of authenticity, though it is unnecessary.  The emotions and situations feel real enough for me to recommend it, mainly to adult audiences.