If one were paying close attention to the recent career of actor Jake Gyllenhaal one might think he was on a mad quest to a) become a buff action star thriller and b) elevate the careers of mid/middling directors. The last three live-action Gyllenhaal movies –“Spider-Man: No Way Home,” “The Guilty,” and “Ambulance”—have all seemed like an attempt to subvert his narrative as arthouse darling, and the latter two were the best films of those director’s careers in quite some time (Antoine Fuqua and Michael Bay, respectively). Gyllenhaal makes his third action thriller film in a row with “The Covenant,” a movie from Guy Ritchie (“Sherlock Holmes”), another filmmaker who has been especially hit and miss in the last decade plus. But Ritchie pulls off the best film of his career in nearly 20 years thanks to Gyllenhaal and his own no-fuss, no-muss approach to mean-and-lean filmmaking and storytelling.
READ MORE: Jake Gyllenhaal & Guy Ritchie Talk ‘The Covenant’ And The “Begrudging” Friendship At Its Heart [The Playlist Podcast]
Technically titled “Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant” (though I’d rather join the Taliban in Afghanistan before I was forced ever to type out those words again), the film seems like a standard-issue, no-frills Afghanistan war thriller, and honestly, that’s enough. Because for the first act, that’s precisely what ‘Covenant’ is, a muscular, meat-and-potatoes action thriller about two soldiers who form an unlikely bond despite their differences and constant butting of heads.
Ritchie’s ‘Covenant’ follows U.S. Army Sergeant John Kinley (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Afghan interpreter Ahmed (an excellent Dar Salim, who holds his own against the always-terrific Gyllenhaal). Set in the 2000s, during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Kinley’s mission is to find IED weapons manufactured against the U.S. army by the Taliban. Having recently lost his Afghani interpreter—GIs who are viewed as despicable traitors by most of the country for conspiring with the American interlopers—and sick of by-the-book methods that get him nowhere in his operation, Kinley recruits Ahmed into his team, but not without a lot suspicious eye-balling and grilling about his intentions and motivations.
While Kinley calls Ahmed a “translator,” the Afghani explicator sees himself as something more. This keen interpreter must use his wits to discern the complexity of complex and potentially dangerous situations. This puts him at odds with Kinley’s follow-orders chain of command approach, and the two men quickly become vexed with one another, especially Kinley. This is the dynamic set-up of the movie initially, filled with compelling action, anxious peril, and tension that keeps you locked into the film without relenting.
Again, honestly, it’s enough to sustain itself, but “The Covenant” soon blossoms into something infinitely more interesting, meaningful and soulful without ever sacrificing its sense of kinetic conflict, captivating combat, and pressure. Despite Ahmed stepping out of bounds more than once, he also saves the skin of Kinley’s team with his shrewd observations about human behavior and what is said vs. what is worth trusting.
However, nothing can help the capable men amid a weapons raid gone awry. Kinley is shot, wounded, and captured, but Ahmed goes to insane Herculean lengths to save Kinley’s life and rescue him. This leads to a grueling second act where Ahmed takes the lead and somehow saves their skin despite an Armada of Taliban combing the territory looking for them.
The film morphs again, this time into a convincing moral drama. Safe back at home in America months later, when Kinley learns that Ahmed and his family were not given Visas and safe passage to America as promised—and fearing for his life with a price on his head, Ahmed and his family vanish and go underground—the American sergeant undergoes a massive ethical crisis. “I have a hook in me,” Gyllenhaal’s character seethes through gritted teeth with a fierce, unyielding conviction that only an actor like Jake Gyllenhaal can persuasively convey.  
Safe at home with his wife and family, Kinley can’t sleep or even enjoy life because he knows he lives and breathes only because of Ahmed’s miraculous efforts. He has a debt to repay and already adept on man-on-a-mission tasks, he returns to the treacherous war zone on his own, outside the lines of the American military with the help of black ops contractors, to retrieve Ahmed and his family before the Taliban hunts them down first.
There’s a serious, solemn moral responsibility Kinley feels, and Ritchie’s film makes sure to match that serious code of honor beat by beat. Yes, it’s Guy Ritchie, and thus the movie can’t resist the temptation for some unnecessary cinematic flourishes—especially when Gyllenhaal’s character is wounded and delirious from pain, meds a near-death experience of being dragged miles across hostile Afghani terrain—but for the most part, the director’s filmmaking is taut, economical and sinewy.
Moreover, there are swaths of ‘Covenant’ where its already taciturn men don’t speak (Gyllenhaal recently said the screenplay was only a scant 50 pages long), and entire acts are nearly silent save for the grunts of men desperately trying to survive their situations.
This gels well with Ritchie’s theme of masculinity. Kinley and Ahmed don’t really like each other much at first and face outstanding distrust issues at first, but there’s an unspoken respect between them that only grows. When each man is in jeopardy, the other man goes to colossal lengths to ensure their partner survives. It might not be the exact opposite of toxic masculinity, but it’s close; there’s something incredibly beautiful and soulful about the bonds formed between the two men, how Ritchie states it, but never feels the need to sentimentalize or overcook it. There’s almost nothing more visceral than risking your life to save someone else’s; these men make unbreakable, unarticulated pledges to one another, and Ritchie’s film honors those commitments with deep-seated integrity.
Granted, it’s not particularly politically complex, but it is, on the other hand, a very simple story and works in that regard. Other actors appear here and there, Antony Starr, Jonny Lee Miller, Emily Beecham, etc., but this is very much a two-hander, which is all the more impressive for the lesser-known Salim, who constantly gives as good as he gets.
Even in his crime capers, Ritchie’s always had a light touch that’s sometimes veered off into the too-goofy, silly, or slight. But this grave turn, which isn’t grim, self-serious, or even humorless, is a welcome shift. That Ritchie can craft a hard, gripping action thriller isn’t much of a surprise, but the principled, poignantly honorable aspect of the film and how well it’s conceived is a welcome surprise. No one hugs, says thanks, or even utters words of appreciation in the end. But ‘The Covenant’ is so self-assured in its noble filmmaking values and beliefs. It makes a knowing nod between two men— and the heroically punishing sacrifices they risked for one another— one of the most moving moments on screen this year. More like this, Guy. [B+].
“Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant” opens Friday, April 21, via MGM.