Review: 'Guy Ritchie's The Covenant,' under its bombast, is a thoughtful story of two men who become brothers in arms

It’s always intriguing when a popcorn-movie kind of director, like Guy Ritchie (“King Arthur,” the Robert Downey Jr. “Sherlock Holmes” movies), tries to make something serious — as he does, with some success, in the harrowing war drama “Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant.”

(Yes, the director’s name is part of the title — as the local studio rep strongly reminded us before the screening started. Since I do not wish to receive angry emails from MGM, I’m going with it.)

Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Master Sergeant John Kinley, leading a squad of soldiers in Afghanistan in 2018, some 16 years into the 20-year war the United States fought there in an ultimately doomed attempt to root out the Taliban. (I’m not going to get into finger-pointing about this, except to say those 20 years covered more than 11 years with a Republican in the White House, and more than 8 years with a Democratic president — so there’s plenty of blame to go around.)

Kinley needs a new interpreter for the squad, someone who can speak the local language and communicate with the Afghanis the squad will encounter. The one he gets is Ahmed, played by the Iraqi-born Danish actor Dar Salim. Ahmed isn’t like most interpreters, Kinley soon discovers, in that he’s tough and is willing to take the initiative to get information from the locals. Kinley later learns that Ahmed is motivated by the death of his son, at the hands of the Taliban. Ahmed also has a wife, Basira (Fariba Shekhan), who’s about to have a baby — and he aims to protect her from the Taliban, who are targeting Afghanis who are cooperating with the Americans.

The script — by Ivan Atkinson, Marn Davies and Ritchie — makes a sharp turn when Kinley’s unit is ambushed by Taliban fighters. Kinley and Ahmed are the only survivors, and the two must travel by foot overland, off the roads, to get back to base. During part of this journey, Kinley is injured, and Ahmed must risk his life to protect him and get him to safety.

The second half of the film focuses on a harsh reality of the Afghanistan war: The United States promised interpreters that they would get visas to America, to keep them from getting killed by the Taliban, and those visas often didn’t arrive as promised.

It’s interesting that there’s no “based on a true story” tag at the beginning of “Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant.” Instead, the story is an amalgam of many similar stories — symbolized by the numerous photos of U.S. servicemen with their Afghani interpreters shown over the closing credits. Ritchie thus allows himself to cherry-pick the details that make the most dramatic sense, including an ending that’s weirdly rah-rah about a war we arguably lost. (Again, no finger-pointing, but one shouldn’t blame the troops for the errors of their commanders.)

What gives “Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant” its solid footing is the twinned performances by Gyllanhaal and Salim. The movie lets Kinley and Ahmed’s relationship build, first with each wary of the other, and gradually building on mutual respect, admiration and ultimately an unbreakable bond of friendship. There’s also a strong sense of gratitude and a debt to be paid, as Kinley must go back and rescue the man to whom he owes his life — and both actors feel the weight of that debt, and show us the depth of that friendship.

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‘Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant’

★★★

Opens Friday, April 21, in theaters. Rated R for violence, language throughout and brief drug content. Running time: 123 minutes.