I was concerned going into this film since my last Guy Ritchie experience was so very bad… and I’m just not a big fan of his arch hyperactive tough guy crime films. But I needn’t have worried since this is most certainly not an arch hyperactive tough guy crime film. In fact, it barely feels like a Guy Ritchie film at all…

The Covenant follows Jake Gyllenhaal as the man in charge of a unit sniffing out Taliban arms and explosives in Afghanistan circa 2018. He takes on a new local interpreter who has been promised amnesty in the US once his work is done. But soon they find themselves alone, crossing enemy-occupied territory together.

The first hour of this flick is very familiar boots-on-the-ground Afghan war stuff. It feels like a flashback to all those “War on Terror” films that maybe didn’t do so well. This one isn’t all that different… though it is very well made, full of genuine tension and release. The action scenes are intense, gritty, and believable… and they don’t feel like Guy Ritchie’s usual style at all. Which is not a criticism… might even be a compliment.

The second half of the film is largely about the fallout… and they could have gone in some far, far more interesting directions. The film ends exactly where I was hoping it was going to begin its third act. The result was something even more bog-standard than the first half which rapidly deflated my opinion of the flick. It felt like they were going somewhere else, somewhere more in line with the theme. What they filmed wasn’t bad though… it was a perfectly fine version of something you’d seen before.

Even if it’s yet another one of those Afghan war films, it’s made with craft and care. Genuinely suspenseful and exciting and ultimately has a thing to say about how that war ended. I just wish it had said that thing in a more interesting fashion. Still, it’s a pretty good flick… as long as you aren’t expecting a typical Guy Ritchie flick.

Score: 84