Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant marks a change of pace for both its director and star. While Jake Gyllenhaal’s been on a fantastic roll lately, playing characters that range from morally complex (The Guilty) to deranged (Spider-Man: Far From Home, Nightcrawler, Ambulance and many more), it’s been a while since he’s played a legit hero. You’d have to go back to Stronger and then before that Source Code to think of a time Gyllenhaal played a guy whose morals were always in the right place. In Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant, he plays a legit hero, Sgt John Kinley, who returns to war-torn Afghanistan to extract the interpreter, Ahmed (Dar Salim), who saved him from the Taliban.
I was lucky enough to sit briefly with Gyllenhaal and Salim for a quick talk about the movie. In our chat, Gyllenhaal explained why he opted to play a more heroic role this time and how the story awoke feelings of patriotism in him. Meanwhile, Salim, who steals the show as the edgy, quick-witted Ahmed, explains why making the two characters have a relationship defined by necessity rather than brotherhood made this a more truthful take on the genre. Both actors seemed thoroughly engaged by the material, with it being one of Guy Ritchie’s darker films.
Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant is now open in theaters. Check out our review here!
The film has the following synopsis: Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant follows US Army Sergeant John Kinley (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Afghan interpreter Ahmed (Dar Salim). After an ambush, Ahmed goes to Herculean lengths to save Kinley’s life. When Kinley learns that Ahmed and his family were not given safe passage to America as promised, he must repay his debt by returning to the war zone to retrieve them before the Taliban hunts them down first.